The ECI could face court proceedings if petitioners establish that it knowingly or recklessly misrepresented the Supreme Court’s ruling.
BY PC Bureau
NEW DELHI, September 28: The Election Commission of India’s claim that the Supreme Court “upheld” the declaration now attached to Form 6 is contradicted by the Court’s May 27 judgment, raising the possibility of legal proceedings against the poll panel for misrepresenting what the apex court actually decided, lawyers tracking the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) litigation said.
The ECI said on September 26 that “the declaration attached to Form 6 for SIR has been upheld by the Hon’ble Supreme Court.” But the Supreme Court did not adjudicate the present Form 6 declaration introduced on the ECI’s online portal in 2026. The declaration now requires applicants to provide details concerning their own or relatives’ entries in the previous intensive revision roll, including the Assembly constituency, part number and serial number.
The distinction is not semantic. It goes to the heart of the Commission’s legal authority to impose the additional requirement.
On May 27, a Bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant and comprising Justice Joymalya Bagchi upheld the Bihar SIR and recognised the Commission’s residual power to devise a documentation framework for an intensive revision under Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950.
But the Court imposed an explicit limitation on that power.
“The authority, however, is not unbounded,” the judgment said, adding that any departure from the statutory scheme must have a “rational nexus” with the object of the revision.
What the Court actually considered was the documentation framework contained in the ECI’s June 24, 2025 Bihar SIR order, including its Annexure D declaration. That declaration did not contain the present requirement that an applicant trace a parent’s or grandparent’s entry in an earlier SIR roll and provide the corresponding constituency, part and serial numbers.
ECI press note has exposed all 3 Election Commissioners.
Now they are agreeing to cross check ECINET software & saying form 6 will be used in its original form.
It means that they have been doing something illegal all along.
— Listen to @_YogendraYadav pic.twitter.com/CkTVoqf4xg
— Shantanu (@shaandelhite) September 26, 2026
Those additional requirements appeared subsequently on the ECI’s online system.
The Indian Express reported in July that the revised online Form 6 had begun requiring applicants to provide details of their parents’ presence in the last SIR, including constituency, part and serial number. It raises an important question: Could the ECI legitimately claim that the Supreme Court had already upheld the new declaration?
The statutory Form 6 prescribed under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 has not been amended to incorporate the new SIR-specific declaration.
The ECI’s September 26 statement therefore presents a legal problem: the Commission is attributing to the Supreme Court an approval that does not appear in the judgment.
The Commission’s constitutional status does not immunise it from judicial scrutiny, and any petitioner can approach the Supreme Court seeking clarification of the May judgment and a determination of whether the present Form 6 requirements fall within the limited authority recognised by the Court. A separate challenge can also be mounted against the legality of the additional requirements themselves.
More significantly, lawyers say the Commission’s representation could become the subject of contempt proceedings if it is established that the Court’s judgment was deliberately or recklessly misrepresented in a manner that interferes with the administration of justice or undermines the authority of the Court.
The Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 treats as criminal contempt conduct that substantially interferes, or tends substantially to interfere, with the due course of justice. The statutory threshold is important: an incorrect interpretation of a judgment does not automatically become contempt.
But the issue changes if a constitutional authority knowingly invokes a Supreme Court judgment as judicial approval for an administrative measure that the judgment never considered.
In such circumstances, a petitioner could ask the Supreme Court to examine the ECI’s statement, compare it with the actual judgment and determine whether the Commission crossed the line from legal interpretation into conduct warranting contempt action.
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The false-declaration problem
The controversy has an additional consequence for voters.
Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act provides for punishment where a person knowingly makes a false statement or declaration in connection with electoral registration. The punishment can extend to one year’s imprisonment, a fine, or both.
That creates an obvious asymmetry.
The ECI can require an applicant to make a legally consequential declaration. If the applicant gets historical electoral details wrong, the declaration can have statutory consequences. Yet the Commission itself is now making a categorical public assertion about what the Supreme Court “upheld”.
If that assertion is demonstrably inconsistent with the judgment, the Supreme Court—not the Commission—would ultimately determine what the Court actually approved.
The legal issue can therefore be reduced to a documentary comparison:
May 27 judgment. June 24, 2025 Bihar SIR order and Annexure D. July 2026 online Form 6. September 26 ECI statement.
Placed side by side, they raise a question the Supreme Court may ultimately have to answer:
Did the Court uphold the present Form 6 declaration—or did it merely uphold the ECI’s limited power to devise an SIR documentation framework, subject to statutory constraints and a rational nexus with the purpose of the revision?
If the latter is what the judgment says, the ECI cannot convert that limited judicial ruling into a blanket judicial endorsement of a subsequent administrative requirement.
