Modified Form 6 not approved by us: Supreme Court's big remark

The Supreme Court on Monday clarified that it had not approved any changes to Form 6, the application used for registering new voters, as it heard petitions challenging the powers exercised by Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar amid the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

The clarification came after the court was told about changes made to Form 6 in connection with the SIR exercise. The bench made it clear that it had not approved any such modification. “Modified Form 6 has not been approved by us, let us be very clear,” it said.

Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant said the court wanted to examine the record to determine who had made the changes. “When the record is produced, we want to see who has modified the Form 6,” he observed.

The Form 6 row centres on an additional SIR declaration by the EC, requiring new voters to provide links to earlier electoral rolls. The poll body said it was merely an annexure while critics argued it effectively altered a statutory form without following the prescribed legal process.

This is a developing story. It will be updated.- Ends

Aneesha Mathur is a Special Correspondent for India Today where she puts her LLB degree to use covering Legal issues and cases in the Supreme Court of India, Delhi High court and other courts/tribunals.

Aneesha joined India Today in October 2018. After graduating from St Stephen's College and Faculty of law,Delhi University, she spent the formative years of her career in print Media.

Her interest in journalism stems from experience while interning with Legal services and Juvenile justice board as a law student, where she learnt the importance of ensuring that accurate information reaches the world, and that stories about individual experiences and statistics that show a "bigger picture" must supplement each other so other people can see what the large impact of a small thing can be. When not working or thinking about the law and it's state, Aneesha hides from reality in fantasy novels, rom-coms and food.