John Brittas MP has written to the Chief Election Commissioner challenging the legality of the Election Commission's introduction of a mandatory declaration in the online Form 6 through the ECINET portal.

He has pointed out that the Election Commission has effectively altered the statutory Form 6 without any amendment to the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 or any corresponding notification issued by the Ministry of Law and Justice in the Official Gazette. The online portal compels applicants to furnish details relating to their own or their parents' or grandparents' enrolment in the last Special Intensive Revision (SIR). A statutory form, being part of subordinate legislation, cannot be amended through administrative instructions or software modifications.

The online Form 6 now compels applicants to disclose whether they, or their parents or grandparents, were enrolled in the last Special Intensive Revision (SIR) and furnish legacy electoral details. Neither any corresponding amendment has been made to the physical statutory Form 6, nor does any Gazette notification of the Ministry of Law & Justice authorising this change appear to exist.

A statutory form prescribed under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 cannot be rewritten through administrative instructions or software updates. A portal is not a Gazette. Software code is not law.

If this is allowed, tomorrow any statutory safeguard governing voter registration can be altered through a change in the portal - without amending the Rules, without parliamentary oversight and without authority of law. That strikes at the very foundation of the Rule of Law.

This arbitrary requirement also creates an unjust burden on millions of first-time voters, migrants, adopted children, orphans and countless citizens who may have no access to decades-old electoral records of their parents or grandparents. The constitutional guarantee of universal adult suffrage cannot be diluted by technological barriers that have no statutory sanction.

Describing the issue as one that goes far beyond a mere procedural change, Dr. John Brittas has urged the Election Commission to immediately withdraw the mandatory declaration in online form 6 and ensure that no eligible citizen is denied or delayed enrolment in the electoral roll on the basis of a requirement that lacks statutory sanction.