The Supreme Court stated on Monday that its position on modifications reportedly made to Form 6 — the registration document through which eligible voters apply to be added to the electoral roll — remained one of neither endorsement nor rejection, with the bench noting that the matter had not come up for adjudication during proceedings on the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Bihar.

A three-judge panel — led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and joined by Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana — issued the clarification during proceedings on a petition tied to the SIR exercise.

In a ruling handed down on 27 May, the court confined its analysis to whether the pilot Special Intensive Revision process in Bihar had been conducted within lawful bounds. That ruling pre-dated the amendments applied to Form 6, the court noted.

Those portal-level adjustments — which asked applicants to supply ancestry information or demonstrate a connection to earlier SIR rolls on ECINet — were rolled out in July. The bench noted that the revised Form 6 had not yet been in existence at the point when the Bihar SIR matter was heard and resolved.

Justice Bagchi indicated from the bench that the revised Form 6 had not been taken up for either approval or rejection at that point, adding that the matter would now be placed under the court's review.

Those remarks were made in response to a petition filed by Priya Mishra against the Union government, which contests modifications made to Form 6 for enrolling new voters during Special Intensive Revision exercises conducted across several states.

Petitioner's counsel told the court that the Election Commission had represented to it that the apex court had given its approval to the revised Form 6. On 5 October, the bench noted that no authorisation had been granted for alterations to Form 6 — the document the Election Commission was deploying during its Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls across multiple states — adding that the new version of the form had yet to receive any judicial determination.

Justice Bagchi clarified that the bench's position extended no further than what had already been stated, and went on to explain that when the Bihar SIR matter came before the court, the question of the revised Form 6 had not yet arisen — a circumstance that, in the bench's view, carried no implication of either endorsement or rejection of that form by the apex court.

The bench noted that the petition would be taken up alongside comparable SIR-related matters already pending before the court, all of which were scheduled for a joint hearing on 27 October. The Chief Justice advised counsel to exercise care in drawing inferences from the court's remarks during proceedings, urging them not to lift isolated words out of context.

During a separate petition heard on 5 October, the bench stated that no changes to Form 6 had received its authorisation.

Objections have been raised over adjustments made to the voter registration form — specifically Form 6 — on the grounds that the update bypassed the procedural steps mandated by law. Those seeking to enrol as first-time voters under the updated form are required to indicate whether a prior Special Intensive Revision covered either themselves or a parent. Across electoral roll revision processes in other states, an earlier iteration of Form 6 carried no requirement for any such declaration.

A press release dated 26 September from the Election Commission stated that the apex court's May 2025 ruling on the Bihar SIR had affirmed the validity of the Form 6 declaration.

One matter the petition brings forward centres on changes made to Form 6, the document through which voters submit their registration applications. According to the petition, the election body embedded into its software a requirement for voters to furnish ancestral information and demonstrate a connection to the prior Special Intensive Revision, doing so without any formal amendment to the governing electoral rules.

During proceedings on 5 October, the petitioner's legal representative brought up a verbal observation made by the Chief Justice from the bench. Counsel noted that the Chief Justice of India had remarked the Form 6 modifications were not sanctioned by the bench, yet the Election Commission continued to maintain, despite that judicial observation, that court approval had in fact been granted for those alterations.

In its ruling dated 27 May concerning the Bihar SIR, the court treated Form 6 as a procedural guide for carrying out the verification process. The court noted that Form 6, as deployed in the Bihar SIR process, established a structured documentation framework, adding that leaving the verification procedure entirely to individual discretion — without any guiding parameters — would be neither workable nor appropriate.

The 27 May ruling, authored by Chief Justice Kant, noted that while Form 6 — as laid out under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 — establishes a documentation framework, that framework is specifically designed to serve the revision process envisaged under Section 21(2) of the Representation of the People Act.

During the 5 October hearing on petitions contesting the SIR process, the Chief Justice addressed arguments concerning July alterations to Form 6, stating that no modifications to the form had been authorised or carried out by the bench.

Form 6 is included within the Schedule of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, and carries the force of a legally mandated document under that framework. Critics of the changes have argued that revisions to Form 6 should go through established legislative channels rather than being carried out through unilateral administrative decisions.

Form 6 was updated to incorporate an additional declaration section covering the linkage conditions tied to voter registration. Under the updated registration framework, anyone submitting a fresh application is required to disclose whether they, a parent, or a grandparent appeared on the earlier SIR electoral rolls. Answering those mapping and linkage questions was set as a mandatory condition before any Form 6 application could be lodged.