The Supreme Court on Monday, October 5, sought responses from the Centre, the Election Commission and Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on petitions challenging the way electoral-roll decisions were taken. The court declined to suspend Kumar through an interim order before hearing the respondents. Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana heard the matters.
Petitioner Rakesh Kumar Singh alleges that decisions connected with the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls bypassed the Commission’s collective authority. His challenge follows reporting about objections from Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi. Section 18 of the 2023 election-commissioners law requires business to be conducted unanimously wherever possible, with differences settled by the majority.
A connected petition by advocate Shailendra Mani Tripathi seeks an independent judicial inquiry or a special investigation team led by a retired Supreme Court judge. It challenges alleged changes to voter-registration Form 6, management of electoral-roll databases and failures to restore eligible voters. These are requests and allegations before the court, rather than findings that the claimed violations occurred.
During the hearing, senior advocate Vikas Singh pressed for immediate restrictions, arguing that disputed roll decisions could affect elections before the litigation concluded. The bench said it needed the respondents’ accounts and authenticated information first. It indicated that decisions found contrary to the law could be restrained, while declining to assume at this stage that all disputed actions were unilateral.
The Election Commission has previously disputed the central allegation. In its September 26 statement, approved by the full Commission, it said the nationwide revision order and subsequent schedules had unanimous approval. It also said letters to the Cabinet Secretary concerned an officer on deputation, rather than policy or IT-division matters. Monday’s notice begins examination of these competing accounts; it does not establish misconduct or invalidate the revision.