On Monday, October 12, the Supreme Court made an important clarification. In a case challenging the allegedly unilateral special intensive revision (SIR)-related decisions taken by chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, the Court stated that it had not adjudicated the amendments to Form 6 — the form new voters must fill for enrolment. The clarification came in relation to an October 5 observation by the Chief Justice of India Surya Kant — Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana are the other members of the bench hearing the case — that the changes had not been “approved” by the Supreme Court. The Court said on Monday that since it had not ruled on the changes, it had neither approved nor rejected them.

The clarification remains in stark contrast to the Election Commission’s own public stand, according to which certain controversial changes that had been made to Form 6 — such as listing the details of one’s parents in the 2002 SIR — had been granted the Supreme Court’s imprimatur.

While the fallout of this will become apparent in the days to come, the episode revealed something else: The Election Commission had made a hugely consequential alteration to a statutory instrument — one that directly impacted citizens’ voting rights — without any public deliberation or oversight.

This, in turn, reveals a deeper problem: A lot of effective law-making, at present, takes place with little to no involvement of the actual........

© hindustantimes