Supreme Court seeks Centre's response on plea for action against CEC Gyanesh Kumar, SIT probe into voter deletions

The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Central government, Election Commission of India and Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar on a public interest litigation petition seeking action against Kumar in light of a recent Indian Express report which claimed that the ECI had taken many decisions on special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls despite two of the three Election Commissioners objecting to such decisions..A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana sought the responses of the Centre, ECI and Kumar and tagged the matter with another plea against Kumar.Senior Advocate Menaka Guruswamy, appearing for the petitioner, said that voting rights of citizens is under threat and the CEC is biased."In Delhi, it is 30 per cent of the electorate. In Bengal, it was 25 per cent of the electorate. There are 16 lakh appeals pending before the appellate tribunal. Those persons have already been excluded from one election cycle. Now there is another election cycle," Guruswamy said.The Bench questioned Guruswamy about the prayers in the petition but Guruswamy said that she stands by the same."Have you seen your prayers?" CJI Kant asked. "Yes, and I stand by those prayers. I stand by those prayers. Where is the infirmity in those prayers? When the franchise rights of the world's largest democracy are under threat and SIR is being imposed, and the Chief Election Commissioner's functioning is biased, to say the least," she shot back."We also do our homework. We also know the case," CJI Kant replied.Guruswamy said that the issues raised in the petition is not State-specific but affects the entire country."This is not supposed to be State-specific. The State is only being used as an illustration. We are highlighting the most recent elections. It concerns the national functioning of the CEC and the Election Commissioners, the institution of the Election Commission. That illegality is being protected by an unconstitutional law. What is the sanction for this kind of biased conduct? Is this discharge of official duty? I ask myself. We have grown up with free and fair elections in this country. They do not exist today. I stand by these prayers, each and every one of them. It is a national problem," she argued..The plea was filed by advocate Shailendra Mani Tripathi seeking direction to declare all decisions taken by the ECI without the concurrence of majority of Election Commissioners as illegal and void."Declare all decisions, guidelines, directives, and software modifications initiated, approved, or implemented under Respondent No. 3 (CEC Gyanesh Kumar) without full Commission concurrence or contrary to the majority opinion of the Election Commissioners (under Section 18 of the CEC and Other ECs Act, 2023) as unconstitutional, ultra vires, and void ab initio," the plea has prayed. The petitioner also sought action against CEC Gyanesh Kumar, Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Maneesh Garg and Director General (Information Technology) of ECI Seema Khanna for deliberate breach of official duty.As per the petition, official files revealed that over a 10-month period (November 2025 – August 2026), two Election Commissioners—Dr. Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Dr. Vivek Joshi—formally recorded written dissents and objections on at least 14 separate occasions (including four times on a single day) against unilateral, unauthorized, and illegal decisions taken and executed in the name of the Commission.The petitioner said that there should be probe by a judicial inquiry commission or a special investigation team (SIT) into the deletion of 13 crore voters from electoral rolls during the SIR.Pertinently, the plea has also sought restoration of statutory Form 6 as prescribed under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 and permit all eligible adults to register as voters on the basis of original statutory requirements..The plea listed a slew of acts done by CEC in collusion with official as "illegal"..As per the plea, the statutory form 6 (which is the official application form used for inclusion of a name in the electoral roll and meant for individuals registering as new voters or those shifting to a different constituency) was unilaterally altered by the CEC introducing a mandatory ancestral condition ("last SIR linkage") for first-time young voters.This was done without legislative authority or amendment of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. This action was explicitly branded as "unauthorised and illegal" by a majority of the Election Commissioners..Further, Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) were deprived of their statutory authority under Section 13B, 22, and 23 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, and electoral roll management was centralised under the Director General of IT (DG-IT).There was an intentional software omission of a "rollback" facility by which EROs were locked out from restoring 97 eligible electors in Goa despite judicial directions, it was contended.The Chief Electoral Officer of Goa sent eight consecutive communications to Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Gyanesh Bharti and DG-IT Seema Khanna requesting the activation of a "rollback/reversal" feature in ECINet, as EROs found 97 electors fully eligible. However, the ECI-IT division ignored the requests, disenfranchising all 97 citizens, it was alleged.As regards the contentious West Bengal SIR, the petitioner stated that over 16.10 lakh appeals were filed by ECI against citizens before West Bengal Appellate Tribunals.These appeals were filed challenging the inclusion of electors who after being initially excluded from the rolls during SIR were subsequently restored by judicial officers.According to the petition, these appeals were filed without the knowledge, authorisation, or sanction of the other two Election Commissioners or the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of West Bengal.As per the plea,"In August 2026, Election Commissioner Sandhu recorded in writing: "Who was authorised to file these appeals on behalf of ECI, and by whom?" and "Who actually filed these appeals on behalf of ECI?" Neither Commissioner Sandhu, nor Commissioner Joshi, nor the West Bengal CEO had any knowledge or authorisation of these 16.10 lakh appeals. This represents a fabricated, unauthorised litigation abuse designed to disenfranchise judicial beneficiaries.".As regards Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Maneesh Garg, the petitioner stated that Garg unilaterally issued an order altering the IT oversight structure and removing DEC Sanjay Kumar from IT matters.This compelled the two Election Commissioners, Sandhu and Joshi, to petition the cabinet secretary directly..The petition was filed through advocate Chand Qureshi..[Read Live Coverage]