Supreme Court says it never approved the modified Form 6 and will not suspend the CEC

The Supreme Court on Monday said it had not approved any modification of Form 6, the application a first-time voter uses to enter the electoral roll, and refused to suspend Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar while it waits for the Election Commission's reply.

Chief Justice Surya Kant, sitting with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana, told the courtroom that a modified Form 6 had not been approved by the court, and that the bench wanted the record so it could see who had changed the form. The remark cuts against a 28 September statement from the Election Commission, which had said the declaration attached to Form 6 had been upheld by the Supreme Court.

What the bench would not do

Petitioners had asked for Kumar's suspension and for prosecution, arguing that he took decisions on the special intensive revision of rolls without the concurrence of the other two election commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi. The court issued notices to the commission, to Kumar, and to Sandhu and Joshi. It said the poll body is expected to take unanimous decisions. It did not grant the interim order.

Kant said the report before the court might be accurate or inaccurate, and that the bench could not pass an order on it. The court would presume the commission's decisions were in accordance with the law until a response arrived. That is a holding pattern, not a clearance. The notices require the commission to produce the record of how Form 6 was changed and how SIR decisions were taken.

What Form 6 is being asked to do

Form 6 is the statutory application for new registration. The dispute is about an annexure added to the online form, which requires an applicant to map a parent's details to the previous special intensive revision. If that mapping fails, the applicant cannot proceed. The Wire has reported that the change appeared in July, after a Supreme Court judgment in May. The commission's September line was that the court had upheld the attached declaration. Monday's oral observation is that the court does not accept that description.

The practical effect sits with people who are registering for the first time, including young voters and people who have moved. A parent-mapping rule changes who can finish the form without a booth-level chase. The court has not struck the annexure down. It has said the annexure is not its work, and it wants the name of the official or the file that introduced it.

The wider SIR fight, and a separate Delhi order

The same day the Karnataka chief electoral officer dismissed allegations of automated deletions under Form 7, the form used for objections. That denial is a state-level statement, not a finding of the Supreme Court. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said after the hearing that it was established that Kumar had changed Form 6 illegally and unilaterally, and that those involved would be held accountable. The court's own words were narrower. It refused suspension, presumed legality until the reply, and asked who modified the form.

In a separate hearing the court took suo motu notice of crimes against women in Delhi, ordered steps to increase police visibility in vulnerable areas, and asked for status reports on the Nirbhaya Fund and on municipal street lighting. That order is not part of the Form 6 case. It shows how wide Monday's list was.

The next date that matters is the one on which the commission files the record. Until that file is in court, the public conflict is between a September press line that claimed judicial approval and a chief justice who said, on the record, that the modified form had not been approved.