New Delhi, Oct 5 The Supreme Court on Monday said that it has not approved any modifications to Form 6 being used by the Election Commission (EC) during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in various states.
Form 6 is an application through which an eligible person seeks inclusion in the electoral roll.
A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana said, "Any modification to Form 6 has not been approved by us. Let's be clear. When records are produced, we would like to see who has modified it".
The bench was hearing a PIL filed in wake of a recent Indian Express report, which claimed that two of the three Election Commissioners had objected to decisions related to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, including changes to Form 6 relating to the applicant's ancestry and a link to previous SIR.
The bench told senior advocate Maneka Guruswamy, appearing for petitioner Shailendra Mani Tripathi, who has challenged the decisions, guidelines and software changes allegedly made by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar without the concurrence of his two colleagues, that the prayers in his PIL appear to be jumbled up.
During the hearing on Tripathi's PIL, Guruswamy said there were no infirmities in the petitioner's PIL and raised concerns over changes made to Form 6, which is used by eligible citizens to apply for inclusion of their names in electoral rolls.
The EC issued a press release on September 26 suggesting that the Supreme Court had upheld the Form 6 declaration in the May 2026 judgment relating to Bihar SIR.
The bench issued notice on Tripathi's plea and tagged the matter with another PIL filed by Patna resident Rakesh Kumar Singh on the issue.
Tripathi's plea, filed through advocate Chand Qureshi, has alleged that the CEC's actions violate the statutory requirement of collective decision-making.
The plea also seeks initiation of criminal proceedings against the CEC and other officials for breach of official duty.
"Divested of any statutory or constitutional immunity, the Chief Election Commissioner remains directly accountable under the law -- subject to police investigation, evidence gathering, and regular trial proceedings as an ordinary accused," the plea states.
Tripathi cited the provisions of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023, particularly Section 18, which provides for decision-making by the EC and says that where there is a difference of opinion, the view of the majority prevails.
One of the main issues the plea raises is the alteration of Form 6, which the people use to register as voters. It alleges that the requirement relating to ancestral details and link with the previous SIR was introduced through the election 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 and asserted that the prescribed form could not be altered without following the statutory procedure.
"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," the plea says.
Concerns over the handling of electoral roll revisions in Goa and West Bengal were also mentioned in the plea, which alleged that the software lacked the feature to restore 97 eligible electors in Goa despite directions for their verification.
In West Bengal, the petitioner claimed that more than 16.10 lakh appeals were filed in the EC's name against voters whose names were restored by judicial officers.
The other two election commissioners and the West Bengal chief electoral officer were not aware of these appeals, nor did they authorise them, the plea claims.
