Election Commission completes Form 6 U-turn, drops SIR para a Commissioner called ‘illegal’

Form 6 is the statutory application used by people seeking enrolment as new voters. The ECI had inserted an additional SIR declaration between Sections J and K of its online version. Applicants could not continue without answering it. The change mattered because the declaration appeared to alter a form prescribed by election rules.

The declaration asked applicants to identify their connection with the electoral roll from the last SIR in the early 2000s. They had to say whether their own name appeared, whether a parent’s or grandparent’s name appeared, or whether none appeared. The ECI’s online system originally combined this declaration with Form 6 to create one OTP and one e-signature.

On October 21, 2026, the ECI’s ER Division decided to split the online application into two parts. Form 6 would remain the prescribed form, while the SIR declaration would appear separately. This reversed the earlier online arrangement and addressed objections from both Election Commissioners.

Form 6 is the prescribed application for a person seeking enrolment as a new voter. In practical terms, it is the form through which an applicant asks election authorities to add their name to the electoral roll. The article describes it as a statutory voter-enrolment form available online through the ECI’s ECINet portal.

Its importance is legal as well as practical. Form 6 is prescribed under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. That means the form is not simply an internal webpage designed by the ECI. Its contents and structure are tied to rules governing voter enrolment. Applicants use it to submit their request, including through an online application.

The dispute arose because the ECI added an SIR declaration inside the online Form 6 page. Commissioners argued that this looked like a change to the statutory form. The later decision kept Form 6 separate from the additional SIR declaration, preserving the distinction between the prescribed application and the extra document.

A Special Intensive Revision, or SIR, is an intensive process for revising electoral rolls. The article refers to the last SIR held in the early 2000s and describes a new SIR as still under way in some states. It does not provide a fuller procedural definition, but it shows that the process checks applicants against an earlier electoral roll.

The related declaration offered three choices. Applicants had to say whether their own name appeared in the roll from the last SIR, whether a parent’s or grandparent’s name appeared there, or whether neither their name nor their parents’ names appeared. The online application required an answer before the applicant could proceed.

The declaration was initially placed inside online Form 6, between Sections J and K. The ECI later separated it from Form 6. It remains available as a separate document in states where SIR is still under way, while the prescribed Form 6 continues to be used as its own form.

The article states that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi objected to decisions in 14 notes over 10 months. This figure captures the scale of their recorded disagreements with decisions made during the period described. The objections were not limited to the online Form 6 issue.

Form 6 became a clear example. Joshi wrote on May 16 that the SIR declaration could not be added without a legal amendment. Sandhu agreed on May 19 and later called the change “unauthorised/illegal” on August 13. Despite those objections, the declaration appeared online in July.

The ECI subsequently changed its position several times. It first left the declaration in Form 6 during ongoing SIR operations, then removed it where SIR had ended, and finally separated it from Form 6 everywhere. The article presents this as part of a series of reversals involving decisions the Commissioners had challenged.

The ECI originally placed the SIR declaration inside online Form 6 for convenience. Its counter-affidavit to the Supreme Court said the aim was to let an applicant generate a single one-time password and a single e-signature. The Commission described this as a bona fide objective.

If the application and declaration were separate online documents, the system would require two authentication steps. An applicant would generate one OTP and e-signature for Form 6, then another OTP and e-signature for the SIR declaration. Combining them reduced that duplication and produced one online submission flow.

The convenience created a legal and procedural problem. Form 6 is prescribed under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, and the Commissioners said the ECI could not alter it alone. After concerns that the online presentation looked like an amendment, the ER Division decided on October 21, 2026, to separate the documents.

The practical effect is that an applicant no longer answers the SIR declaration inside the online Form 6 page. Form 6 now appears as the prescribed application, while the SIR declaration is presented as a separate document. This applies on the ECINet portal in states where the relevant SIR process is under way.

The ECI had originally combined both parts to simplify authentication. One combined page generated one OTP and one e-signature. Once separated, the online process follows the arrangement used for physical submissions: Form 6 is one part, and the SIR declaration is another. The Commission’s affidavit says the two-part format mirrors the physical process.

For applicants, this creates an additional submission step. The article says two separate documents would require two OTPs and two e-signatures. The separation also clarifies that the ECI has not formally amended Form 6, addressing the legal concern raised by Sandhu and Joshi.

The legal issue is that Form 6 is not merely an ECI-designed webpage. It is prescribed under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. Because the form derives its official structure from those rules, changing it requires the authority empowered to amend that legal framework. The article identifies that authority as the Central Government.

This is why Joshi objected on May 16 and Sandhu agreed on May 19. They argued that inserting the SIR declaration into Form 6 could not be done without a legal amendment. Sandhu later described the change as “unauthorised/illegal.” Their concern focused on the ECI’s authority to change the prescribed form unilaterally.

The ECI maintained that Form 6 had never been amended. However, it acknowledged that displaying the declaration inside the online form could make it appear that an amendment had occurred. Separating the declaration allowed the ECI to retain the prescribed Form 6 while placing the SIR requirement in a separate document.