The Supreme Court called the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) bluff when it said earlier this week that it never approved the altered declaration form accompanying the online version of Form 6, meant to register new voters. The ECI had in a press statement issued on September 26 declared that the top court approved its changes to Form 6 when it had upheld the constitutionality of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar in May.The ECI’s press release from September 26, 2026, with the claim about the Supreme Court’s approval to the amended Form 6 in bold.But for the Indian Express exposé last month, the onus placed on voters to declare, through this modified Form 6, whether their parents’ or their own names had appeared on benchmark voter lists from the early 2000s would have gone unnoticed.According to the ECI, citizens whose names have been deleted from the electoral rolls during the course of the SIR are required to apply as fresh voters using Form 6. This requirement itself is problematic because it disregards that these citizens voted in previous elections.Being made to enrol compulsorily as a fresh voter creates a significant legal challenges before people who use the Form 6 route despite having voted before and having featured on previous voter lists. This is because they are simultaneously being asked to establish their citizenship (since birth) before state and Union Territory administrations so that they may access social welfare programmes.Lakhs of citizens across the country, including this author and his family, have had to register themselves as fresh voters because their names were deleted from the electoral rolls for one reason or another. Shockingly, the ECI and, under its instructions, the Chief Electoral Officers (CEO), have been changing the rules of the game mid-way during every phase of the SIR since June 2025.This applies to the ever-expanding list of so-called logical discrepancies in voters’ personal and family details, which are being gleaned from documents that voters themselves are submitting, to prove their citizenship and establish their right to vote. This constant changing of the rules also applies to the amendments to the declaration attached to Form 6, which the ECI quietly inserted in its online version during Phase III of SIR.Voters whose names were dropped from the electoral rolls during the SIR as well as youngsters arriving at the 18-year age threshold when they are allowed to vote are now being told to register as fresh voters. They are being made to use paper-based application forms or the online version of the form, available on the ECI and CEO websites.Acting unilaterally, on some unannounced date, the ECI inserted three more options into the declaration attached to the online version of Form 6. This now required every applicant (including this author) to assert one of the following:that the applicant’s name appears in the benchmark electoral rolls prepared during the last SIR conducted in the concerned State or UT; orthat the names of the applicant’s father/mother appear in the benchmark electoral rolls prepared during the last SIR conducted in the concerned State or UT; orthat neither of the above is applicable.Although these were not asterisked as mandatory fields, the web application made it impossible to submit Form 6 unless one of the three options was selected. This author has personally experienced this virtual barricade.These online alterations were not part of the declaration that accompanied the latest version of the statutory Form 6, notified by the Union government in the Official Gazette in June 2022. (See image 1 below.) Put simply, the extra options people are being forced to select on the ECI website were not legally authorised or included in the Form 6 that was approved and published by the Indian government in June 2022.1: Form 6 with the declaration form as notified by the Union Ministry of Law and Justice in June 2022.What is more, the ECI’s own step-by-step instruction manual for its field officers, released when it launched the SIR exercise in June 2025, contained the original, official form as Annexure D. It did not contain the revised declaration in the manual, as updated for the three phases. (See Image 2 below.)2: The declaration form included as Annexure D in the ECI’s SIR instructions since June 2025.Nor are they included in the declaration form accompanying the offline version of Form 6, which this author downloaded from ECI’s website in July 2026. (See Image 3 below.)3: Form 6 with the Declaration Form downloaded from the ECI’s website in July 2026.Readers might ask: The ECI is the supreme authority for preparing and revising the electoral rolls used in elections to parliament and state Legislatures – why can it not make these changes unilaterally? But nothing could be farther from the truth.Form 6 and other statutory forms that must be used during the preparation or revision of voter lists are all created by the rules made under the Representation of the People Act, 1950 (RPA). While RPA was enacted by the Union Legislature, which also functioned as the Constituent Assembly prior to independence, it has been amended several times by parliament since 1952, after the first general election to the Lok Sabha in independent India.Section 28 of RPA empowers the Union government to make rules or amend them for implementing the RPA 1950, after consulting the ECI. Section 28(3) of the Act requires every rule made in this manner to be tabled in parliament for 30 days during which parliament may approve, amend or annul such rules.To understand the difference between the law-making and rule-making procedures, see the detailed explanation published in these columns, in July 2026.Following this procedure, Form 6 and all other forms used for making or revising voter lists connected with elections to the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies must be notified from time to time under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.But the changes to the online version of Form 6 have not been notified by the Union Ministry of Law and Justice in the Official Gazette. Nor has parliamentary approval been sought for these changes.So, to claim legitimacy for the changes through a mischievous interpretation of the Supreme Court’s judgement in the Bihar SIR matter is simply wrong. Image 3, seen earlier, testifies that the changes were absent in the declaration form in Annexure D of the ECI’s SIR-related instructions issued in June 2025.In fact, the apex court examined the Annexure D from June 2025 while giving its stamp of approval to the ECI’s SIR – not its altered online version.Further, all three images seen above state that the contents of Form 6 as well as the Declaration form accompanying it have been made under Rules 13(1) and 26 of the Registration of Electors Rules.Hence, the ECI’s more recent claim that the declaration is not part of the statutory form (the one notified in the Official Gazette) is also a canard which misleads the citizenry.Whether a statutory form is meant for use in offline mode or online mode, it must conform with the contents notified in the Gazette, which is tabled in parliament.ECI does not have the power to make unilateral changes in any statutory form or declaration for SIR or any other purpose, as that requires amending the Rules and that power is vested only with the Union government. Of course, ECI must be consulted during this process.In other words, the Supreme Court’s assertion that it never approved amendments to the declaration form accompanying Form 6 blows a big hole in the ECI’s claims about the legitimacy of the modifications it has made without telling anybody in advance.The Indian Express’s ground-breaking investigations have also revealed that at least one of the two Election Commissioners raised questions about the unilateral amendment to the online version of the declaration form without following the statutory scheme for amendment.Who green-lit the changes on the website is a mystery. Why have the two Election Commissioners acquiesced in the willy-nilly justifications offered by the ECI to these changes is also a mystery. What explanation will the ECI give to the apex court about its claims remains to be seen. All said and done, the country’s top election body has not been covering itself in glory through its actions and omissions.The vocal public anger that is manifesting on the streets in cities and towns across India shows that the ECI is rapidly losing credibility.Venkatesh Nayak is Director, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, New Delhi. Views are personal.For our full coverage on the SIR and the issues it has brought to citizens, click here.