Something has gone badly wrong inside the Election Commission of India, and the country is entitled to know exactly what happened, who authorised it, how many voters were affected and whether decisions concerning the electoral rolls were taken in accordance with law. The immediate trigger is the Supreme Court’s clarification that it had not approved any modified Form 6, despite the impression created earlier that the additional declaration used during the Special Intensive Revision exercise had judicial backing. Chief Justice of India Surya Kant was reported as saying, “Modified Form 6 has not been approved by us, let us be very clear.” That statement does not decide the legality of the Election Commission’s actions, but it removes one possible defence: that the change had already been blessed by the Court.

Form 6 is not an internal office note. It is the statutory application through which a citizen seeks inclusion in the electoral roll. Rule 13 of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 provides for claims for inclusion through Form 6. Section 28 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 gives the Central Government, after consultation with the Election Commission, the power to make rules through notification. Formal changes to prescribed forms are normally made through that rule-making route. The controversy therefore is not simply about wording on a website. It is about whether a statutory electoral process was altered without the procedure required by law.

The reported change asked applicants for information connected with previous Special Intensive Revision rolls, including details about their own or their family members’ presence in earlier electoral rolls. Reporting by The Indian Express said it could find no corresponding gazette notification amending the statutory Form 6. If that account is correct, the Commission must explain the legal authority under which the additional requirement was introduced, who approved it and whether it was treated as mandatory in practice. A voter-registration system cannot depend on administrative improvisation when the form itself is prescribed by law.

The matter becomes more serious because the dispute appears to extend beyond one form. Reporting has said Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi recorded objections to several decisions connected with the Special Intensive Revision, including matters relating to voter registration, deletion, restoration, Form 6 and the use of electoral-roll technology. Those reports further suggest that some decisions were issued despite objections from two of the three members of the Commission. If established, that raises a constitutional question about whether the Election Commission acted collectively as required, or whether the authority of the institution was effectively reduced to the office of the Chief Election Commissioner.

Article 324 of the Constitution vests the superintendence, direction and control of elections in the Election Commission. It does not create a personal commission around one office-holder. Parliament reinforced the collegial character of the body in the 2023 law governing the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners. The Commission is expected to decide matters unanimously where possible, and where there is disagreement, by majority. If two commissioners object to a course of action, their objections cannot simply be treated as background noise. They go to the legality and institutional validity of the decision itself.

The stakes are especially high because electoral rolls determine who gets to vote. The Special Intensive Revision exercise has involved the removal, verification and restoration of names on a very large scale. Deletion from a draft roll does not by itself prove disenfranchisement or wrongdoing. Rolls must be updated for deaths, duplicates, migration and ineligible entries. But when the scale reaches many crores of names, procedural departures become nationally significant. The burden on the Election Commission is not merely to produce a technically cleaner roll. It is to show that every addition, deletion and demand for documentation rests on law, equal treatment and a transparent process.

This is also where political allegations become explosive. Opposition parties and protest groups have alleged that the revision process has operated in a way that benefits the BJP. The BJP rejects that charge and argues that attacks on the Election Commission are politically motivated. At present, the publicly established record does not justify stating as fact that the modified Form 6 was deliberately designed to help the BJP. That claim requires evidence of intent, coordination and electoral benefit. But the absence of proven partisan motive does not reduce the seriousness of the institutional questions already on the table.

An apparently unauthorised modification of a statutory voter-registration process is serious. Written objections from other commissioners are serious. Orders allegedly issued without their concurrence are serious. A public position suggesting that the Supreme Court had approved a modification, followed by the Chief Justice saying that no such approval was given, is serious. Any one of these matters would require explanation. Taken together, they justify a full disclosure of the administrative record.

The Election Commission should publish the complete decision trail behind the Form 6 change. That means the file note proposing it, the legal opinion supporting it, the date of approval, the names of the officers and commissioners consulted, the objections recorded by Sandhu and Joshi, the manner in which those objections were dealt with, the instructions issued to ECINet, the period during which the modified version was operational, the number of applications processed through it and whether any applicant was refused inclusion because of information demanded through the additional declaration. This should not be treated as a public-relations exercise. It is evidence required to restore confidence in an electoral institution.

The Supreme Court proceedings may now force some of that record into the open. Petitioners have sought an independent inquiry and have referred to Section 32 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, which deals with breaches of official duty connected with electoral rolls. These are allegations and legal claims before the Court, not findings of guilt. The distinction matters. A constitutional democracy cannot answer one alleged abuse of process by abandoning due process in response.

There is also a defined constitutional route if serious misconduct by the Chief Election Commissioner is ultimately proved. Article 324(5) gives the CEC protection comparable to that of a Supreme Court judge. That security exists to preserve independence from political pressure. It does not create immunity from accountability. Removal requires the demanding constitutional procedure applicable to a Supreme Court judge and proof of misbehaviour or incapacity. A Chief Election Commissioner cannot simply be thrown out because a political party, protest movement or newspaper demands it. If removal is sought, the case must be established through the constitutional process.

The correct sequence is therefore clear. Establish what happened. Publish the record. Determine whether the statutory form was altered without authority. Determine whether the Commission’s collective decision-making rules were bypassed. Identify whether any voter suffered a legal disadvantage because of the change. If the evidence shows administrative error, correct it. If it shows a breach of statutory duty, fix responsibility. If it establishes deliberate manipulation for a political beneficiary, then India would be facing a far more serious constitutional crisis and the consequences would have to extend beyond administrative correction.

The legitimacy of an election is built long before polling day. It begins with the electoral roll, with equal rules for inclusion and deletion, with a Commission whose decisions can be traced to law and with citizens being able to see that the referee is independent of every contestant. The Election Commission has spent decades asking Indians to trust that system. In this controversy, trust cannot be demanded by press conference or institutional reputation. The Commission must now produce the documents, the legal authority and the decision trail that explain exactly who changed Form 6 and why.

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