'Modified Form 6 Not Approved By Supreme Court': Chief Justice Surya Kant

The Supreme Court today said it will look into the matter concerning Form 6 issued by the Election Commission of India (ECI) and which is needed for registering as a new voter. What was clear was that the "modified" Form 6 has not been approved by the Supreme Court, it said.

Chief Justice of India Surya Kant made these observations while hearing a petition that asked to check whether Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar single-handedly exercised powers constitutionally designated for the entire multi-member poll body which also includes two election commissioners (ECs).

The Supreme Court has not yet made a decision on the matter of Form 6 and would see the issue in-depth only after going through the records whenever they are presented to the court, Chief Justice Kant said, adding he wants to see who amended Form 6.

"The modified Form 6 has not been approved by us. This is clear," the Chief Justice said.

The ECI has said that Form 6 itself has not been amended; it maintained that it only added an extra declaration to be used by new voters for the voter roll cleanup exercise Special Intensive Revision (SIR).

This declaration, added in July this year, needed voters to link their details with parental or grandparent records from previous electoral rolls.

Form 6 is a part of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, which can be changed only through an amendment.

On September 29, Trinamool Congress MP Saket Gokhale cited what he claimed was a response from the Law Ministry to a query under the Right to Information Act (RTI) that said the ministry had no information with it on any proposal from the ECI to amend Form 6 or the rules governing it.

Gokhale referred to a Supreme Court judgement which came in May and which he said was cited by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar to claim the Supreme Court had "upheld the ECI's power to change Form 6" - while the additional declaration rule came two months later.

"How can the Supreme Court uphold an action by ECI that has not even been taken yet?" he had said.

In the hearing today on the petition linked to the row over the CEC's decisions, Chief Justice Kant also observed that any such amendment to Form 6 has not been approved by the Supreme Court.

The entire controversy intensified after the Indian Express newspaper reported on September 25 that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi objected on record at least 14 times over the last 10 months to decisions and orders on the SIR of electoral rolls that they said were issued without their knowledge or recommendation.