Election Commission sources said they have not changed a comma in Form 6 after Chief Justice of India Surya Kant questioned the modifications. The poll body added that an extra declaration page was part of a protocol from last year. Legal experts argued that such changes need proper government notification.
Hours after Chief Justice of India Surya Kant observed during a hearing on a petition seeking the prosecution of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar that the Supreme Court had not approved any modified Form 6, sources within the central poll body reiterated its official stance, saying that it had not changed even a comma or full stop in the original Form 6.
The Election Commission has said that an additional page containing a declaration was added to Form 6 during the SIR.
Sources said the protocol for this was formulated during last year's SIR in Bihar and was subsequently challenged in the Supreme Court. After hearing the matter, the EC sources said, the court observed that the protocol falls within the ambit of the constitutional powers vested in the Election Commission.
The sources added that the additional declaration was also part of the protocol.
However, legal experts told India Today that even before adding the declaration, the mandatory consultation process between the government and the Election Commission should have been completed. Any change or additional provision would also have to be notified in the Gazette and placed before Parliament, they said.
The latest clarification from sources within the poll body came after the Opposition targeted the Election Commission on Monday, following CJI Surya Kant's remarks: "Any modified Form 6 has not been approved by us. Let's be clear. When the record is produced, we would like to see who has modified."
In response, Rahul Gandhi accused CEC Gyanesh Kumar of changing Form 6 "illegally and unilaterally," citing an earlier press statement issued by the poll body last month, which said that the Supreme Court had upheld the declaration attached to Form 6.
Earlier on Monday, a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana made the observation while hearing a PIL filed following a recent Indian Express report on alleged irregularities in the Election Commission's decision-making process during the rollout of the SIR.
The report claimed that two of the three Election Commissioners had objected to decisions linked to the Special Intensive Revision, including changes to Form 6 concerning an applicant's ancestry and a link to the previous SIR.
One of the main issues raised in the plea concerns the alteration of Form 6, which is used by people to register as voters. The petition alleged that the requirement to provide ancestral details and a link to the previous SIR was introduced through the poll panel's software without the statutory amendment required under the electoral rules. According to the petition, the two Election Commissioners other than Kumar objected to the change, saying the prescribed form could not be altered without following the statutory procedure.
The plea asked the court to “issue a writ of mandamus or any other appropriate writ, order, or direction declaring all decisions, guidelines, directives, and software modifications initiated, approved, or implemented under CEC Gyanesh Kumar without full commission concurrence or contrary to the majority opinion of the Election Commissioners as unconstitutional, ultra vires, and void ab initio.”