Today, the Election Commission of India has provided assurance to the Supreme Court that it will introduce "suitable clarifications" to Forms 6 and 6B, used for E-Roll registration, which previously demanded Aadhaar number details for the authentication of new voter entries in the electoral roll.

The matter was heard before the bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala, and Justice Manoj Misra

Senior counsel appearing for the Election Commissionthat the submission of the Aadhar number was not mandatory under Rule 26-B of the Registration of Electors (Amendment) Rules 2022.

This commitment was made in response to a petition that highlighted concerns regarding Form 6 (Application Form for new voters) and Form 6B (Letter of Information of Aadhaar number for the purpose of electoral roll authentication) within the ECI forms used for enrollment in the electronic voter roll.

The petition was filed by G.Niranjan, Senior Vice President , Telangana Pradesh Committee.

Senior Advocate Sukumar Pattjoshi, representing the ECI and joined by Advocate Amit Sharma, presented the information that approximately 66,23,00,000 Aadhar numbers had already been incorporated in the electoral roll finalization process. They emphasized that the requirement of Aadhaar numbers was not obligatory as per Rule 26-B of the Registration of Electors (Amendment) Rules 2022. Consequently, the Election Commission was actively considering introducing suitable clarifications in the forms designed for this purpose.

As a result of the commitment made by the Election Commission of India (ECI), the Court concluded the writ petition. Advocate Narender Rao Thaneer and AOR Shravan Kumar Karnam presented arguments on behalf of the petitioner. The Central Government notified the Registration of Electors (Amendment) Rules 2022 in June 2022, aiming to facilitate the linkage of Aadhaar numbers with election ID cards. Form 6B serves as the application form through which a voter can provide their Aadhaar number for the purpose of electoral roll authentication.