EC's clarification on Form 6 after CJI says Supreme Court 'didn't approve' modification

Reacting to the Supreme Court's observation on Form 6, Election Commission sources on Monday clarified that the poll panel has not changed the form which is used for the registration of new voters.

Sources told CNN-News18 that the form has not been changed and the declaration attached to it for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise was an "additional document".

They added that the Supreme Court had earlier upheld the Bihar SIR where the declaration was part of the process.

The clarification comes after the Supreme Court on Monday made it clear that it had not approved any modified version of Form 6. "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," CJI Surya Kant observed during the hearing.

The court was hearing pleas seeking the suspension of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and challenging decisions allegedly taken by the Election Commission without the approval of its other two members.

On 27 May 2026, the Supreme Court had unanimously upheld the Bihar SIR exercise and ruled that adopting a different procedure from routine electoral roll revisions does not make the exercise unconstitutional.

On September 26, amid the row over SIR, the poll panel had said that the declaration attached to Form 6 for the SIR had been upheld by the Supreme Court in its judgment on the Bihar SIR.

The declaration requires new applicants to provide details linking themselves or their parents or grandparents to electoral rolls prepared during an earlier intensive revision.

On September 30, the Election Commission announced that it withdrew the additional SIR-related declaration from the online voter enrolment Form 6 in states where SIR of electoral rolls has been completed,.

The declaration remains available on the ECINET portal in states and Union Territories where the SIR is underway.

In states where SIR has concluded, the additional declaration has now been removed from the ECINET app and portal as well as the respective Chief Electoral Officer portals, leaving applicants seeking enrolment to fill only the statutory Form 6 prescribed under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.

The move came after the September 26 meeting of the full Commission comprising Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi. After the meeting, the poll panel had said that the declaration attached to Form 6 was meant for SIR and that "for non-SIR period, the Forms applicable as per Rules (the Registration of Electors Rules 1960) will be used".

According to a report in The Indian Express, Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised concerns over the incorporation of the additional SIR declaration into Form 6, arguing that the statutory voter-registration form could not be altered without following the prescribed process for amending the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.

They also objected to the additional declaration being embedded in the online Form 6, saying it could create hurdles for first-time voters, particularly those whose parents or grandparents were not part of earlier electoral rolls.

Sandhu had reportedly sought the removal of the changes, maintaining that they were unauthorised, while the Election Commission maintained that Form 6 itself had not been amended and that the additional declaration was a separate SIR requirement.