The Supreme Court clarified on Monday that its earlier judgment in the Bihar Special Intensive Revision case did not approve or disapprove the new Form 6, the declaration form used for registration of new voters. The Court noted that Form 6 was not before it when the Bihar SIR judgment was delivered, so no ruling was made on its validity. The question of the new Form 6's legality remains open and unadjudicated before the Court.

This clarification touches a critical intersection of electoral law and judicial restraint. Form 6 under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 is the prescribed form through which a citizen applies for inclusion of name in the electoral roll. The Election Commission revised Form 6 to include a self-declaration requirement regarding citizenship, which became contentious.

The Bihar Special Intensive Revision (SIR) was a drive by the Election Commission to update and verify electoral rolls in Bihar. It was challenged before the Supreme Court on grounds that it excluded or disadvantaged certain voter categories. When the Court delivered its ruling in that matter, some parties attempted to read it as implicitly validating or invalidating the new Form 6 requirements. The Court has now firmly rejected both interpretations.

The principle at play is a foundational one in judicial reasoning: a court's judgment binds only on issues actually raised, argued, and decided — res judicata and the doctrine of sub silentio. A point not raised cannot be treated as decided, even if the same case touched related facts. This prevents parties from using a broad judgment as a shield or sword on points never argued.

For CLAT PG, the significance is twofold: the substantive electoral law question (Form 6, voter registration eligibility, self-declaration) remains live, and the procedural principle (courts do not decide what was never before them) is directly testable as a passage-based application question.