Supreme Court Clarifies: New Form 6 Not Examined in Bihar SIR Judgment; Validity Yet to Be Adjudicated
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday clarified that it has neither approved nor disapproved the revised Form 6 declaration used for registration of new voters, observing that the modified version did not exist when the Court delivered its judgment on the Bihar Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in May 2026.
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana made the oral observations while hearing a writ petition filed by Priya Mishra and former Madhya Pradesh Law Minister P.C. Sharma. The petition challenges several decisions of the Election Commission of India (ECI), including alleged unilateral actions by Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and changes to voter registration forms.
During the hearing, counsel for the petitioner referred to the Court’s remarks of October 5, when the CJI had stated that any modified Form 6 had not been approved by the Court. The counsel pointed out that the ECI had subsequently claimed in a September 26 press release that the declaration attached to Form 6 for the SIR exercise had been upheld by the Supreme Court in its May judgment.
Justice Bagchi responded that there had been “no adjudication on the new Form 6.” He further clarified: “What the Hon’ble Chief Justice said was that when the Bihar SIR judgment was delivered, new Form 6 was not there. That does not either say it is approved or disapproved by the Supreme Court. We will examine it.”
The Chief Justice cautioned counsel against selectively picking up words from earlier observations, noting that no application concerning the new Form 6 had been before the Court at the time of the Bihar judgment.
Form 6 is the statutory application under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, for inclusion of names in electoral rolls by first-time voters. The revised declaration requires applicants to state whether they or their parents (or, in some versions, grandparents) were mapped in the previous SIR. Reports have indicated that this requirement, introduced in the online form on the ECINet portal after the May judgment, has drawn objections from Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi on the ground that it could not be incorporated without amending the relevant rules.
The Court has agreed to issue notice in the matter and has directed that the petition be listed on October 27 along with connected challenges concerning the SIR exercise and the functioning of the ECI. The May 27, 2026 judgment had upheld the ECI’s power to conduct the Bihar SIR under Article 324 of the Constitution and Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, while holding that its residual authority to frame a documentation regime was “not unbounded” and must maintain a rational nexus with the objective of the exercise.
