SC agrees to hear a plea for standard format for election manifestos

The Supreme Court decided on September 16, 2026 to hear a plea for a standard format for election manifestos of political parties. The petitioner, advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, argued that this would make their intentions and views on issues clear to voters. He pointed out that both the Supreme Court and State High Courts have structured layouts in the form of caselists to inform advocates and court officials.

However, election manifestos have no such uniform format, which is left to individual parties' discretion. The Court's Chief Justice, Surya Kant, agreed to list the petition. Upadhyay contended that an election manifesto is a "vision document, a published declaration of the intentions, motives and views of the political party". He further suggested that it is statutory and legally enforceable.

In a previous petition in 2022, Upadhyay had sought directions to the Ministry of Law and Justice to make political parties accountable for their manifesto promises, or alternatively, direct the Election Commission of India to frame guidelines to hold parties liable for their manifesto promises. He also proposed that the Court should seize the election symbol and derecognise/deregister parties which fail to fulfill their essential rational promises in their manifestos.