Supreme Court Says It Never Ruled on the New Form 6, ‘Do Not Put Words in Our Mouth’; Challenge Listed for 27 October

The Supreme Court on Monday, 12 October 2026, said it has never adjudicated the validity of the Election Commission of India’s modified Form 6, the application used to register as a voter, Hindustan Times and The Hindu reported.

Quick Facts

Bench	Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana
Issue	Whether the court approved changes made to Form 6
Court’s position	Neither approved nor disapproved
Next hearing	27 October, with the batch of SIR petitions

What the Bench Said

“Observations made by this court do not amount to constitutional adjudication. There has been no adjudication on the new Form 6 and that is all we have said,” the bench told a lawyer appearing for a fresh writ petition.

“Whether approved or not approved… that was not there. Do not put words in our mouth,” it added.

Justice Bagchi said the modified form did not exist when the court decided the Bihar Special Intensive Revision (SIR) case. “The new Form 6 was neither approved nor disapproved by us. But we will examine it now,” he said, according to The Hindu.

The Background

The Hindu reported that the court’s 27 May judgment was entirely about the legality of the pilot SIR in Bihar. The changes to Form 6, introduced in July, require applicants to give ancestry details or linkage to earlier SIR rolls on the ECINet portal. One declaration asks applicants to state whether their own name, or a parent’s or grandparent’s, appeared in the roll prepared during the previous SIR.

The petition, filed by Priya Mishra against the Union government, argued that the Election Commission continues to defend the changes by claiming the court approved them. On 5 October, Chief Justice Kant had said: “We are making it clear, any modifications to Form 6 have not been made by us.”

What Happens Next

The bench directed that the issue be listed with the batch of petitions on the SIR on 27 October. On that date it will also take up a wider challenge to the functioning of the Election Commission and the way decisions on the electoral roll revision have been taken.

Featured image: The Supreme Court of India in New Delhi, September 2019 (file photo). Photo by Pinakpani, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.