ECI’s stand that additional declaration is not part of Form 6 comes days after SC said it will examine ‘new’ Form 6

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has raised a razor-thin justification to allegations that it has unauthorisedly amended Form 6 to introduce extra-statutory requirements for voters whose names were deleted in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) to return to the electoral rolls.

The ECI has introduced an additional declaration form along with Form 6 which require these voters to provide details of their earlier electoral roll entries or that of their parents or grandparents. The ECI calls the exercise ‘mapping’. Any perceived mismatch of lack of detail in this regard is broadly termed as ‘logical discrepancy’. In Delhi alone, there were initially 33.12 lakh cases of ‘no-mapping’ or ‘logical discrepancy’.

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Petitioners had claimed in the Supreme Court that the additional declaration form was an illegal amendment to Form 6. ECI cannot have unilaterally altered Form 6. That was the job of the Centre, and not the ECI.

An affidavit displaying a united face among Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi argued that the petitioners had got it wrong.

Form 6 was never changed. The additional declaration form was not part of the statutory Form 6.

“The Declaration is a document provided by SIR orders and is NOT a part of Form 6, which is the statutory Form for inclusion in the electoral roll,” the affidavit said.

The phrase “for inclusion in the electoral roll” does not fully explain the role of Form 6. This Form is meant exclusively to apply as a fresh voter. Petitioners have challenged this aspect too. They argue that pre-existing electors deleted during the SIR exercise are being forced to apply as fresh voters, compelled to do so under the threat of penal consequences.

EC said the additional declaration was part of an online push to assist voters. They could file their required details in a single document rather than produce multiple documents for verification like in the Bihar SIR.

The ECI’s justification has come even as the Supreme Court, on October 12, orally clarified that it had neither approved nor disapproved the controversial alterations made to Form 6 in a May 27 judgment, which was entirely about the legality of the pilot Bihar SIR.

The oral remark had clearly acknowledged the additional declaration form as the “new Form 6”.

“When the Bihar SIR issue was heard and decided, the new Form 6 was not there. The new Form 6 was neither approved nor disapproved by us. But we will examine it now,” Justice Joymalya Bagchi, who is part of the Bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant, had observed orally.

The remark had come in response to a petition filed by Priya Mishra against the Union government challenging the alterations made to Form 6 to register new voters during the SIR exercises undertaken across multiple States.