ECI under scanner

The controversy surrounding Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar has moved beyond familiar political accusation. The disclosures do not establish criminal liability, nor prove conduct warranting his removal. They do, however, raise a serious institutional question: did the Election Commission act within the law, and did its members exercise authority collectively? That question arises not from Opposition allegations, but from what two of Kumar’s colleagues reportedly recorded on official files. An investigation by a national daily says Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi raised objections 14 times over 10 months to decisions they believed were taken without their knowledge. The issues included new voter registration, deletion and restoration of names, changes to Form 6, appeals from the Special Intensive Revision, and centralisation of electoral-roll data. This differs fundamentally from a party alleging bias. Two members of a three-member constitutional body reportedly described some actions as “unauthorised” or “illegal”. They approached the Cabinet Secretary over changes affecting the information-technology infrastructure storing electoral-roll data. The dispute is not about personalities. It is about who controls the roll and who has legal power to alter it. The Goa episode shows why this matters. Ninety-seven voters whom Electoral Registration Officers had found eligible could not reportedly be restored to the final roll because software did not permit it. That is not a minor technical glitch. When an officer empowered to decide eligibility cannot implement that decision, software has ceased to be an administrative instrument and begun determining the exercise of statutory power. Digital systems may support law; they cannot replace it. The Form 6 dispute poses a related question. If SIR-related requirements were inserted into the form for new voters without following legal procedure, the issue cannot be reduced to a disagreement over paperwork. Electoral rights are too consequential to be altered through opaque administrative improvisation. The Commission disputes this interpretation, arguing that disagreement is normal deliberation and that its decisions were ultimately unanimous. That defence may be valid. But it cannot be settled through competing statements. Files, minutes, orders, correspondence, software permissions and legal authority must be examined, with findings made public. Article 324 grants the Commission constitutional responsibility, while the statutory framework presumes a multi-member body. The CEC’s removal is deliberately difficult, requiring the procedure and grounds applicable to a Supreme Court judge. This protection shields election administrators from political retaliation. Yet independence cannot become immunity, and constitutional security cannot justify opacity. Nor should every allegation concerning Kumar be bundled into a verdict by accumulation. His transfer as Kerala PWD secretary and a subsequent vigilance inquiry into a World Bank-funded road project establish an administrative episode, not personal guilt. Claims involving him or his family must likewise be tested against documents, findings and due process. The strongest case for action is not condemnation or resignation, but independent scrutiny. If the 14 objections reveal decisions taken without the participation or authority required of a three-member constitutional body, the matter must not be buried as routine disagreement. If records show the decisions lawful and authorised, that too should be disclosed. The Election Commission’s credibility will not be repaired by rhetoric. It will be repaired when evidence answers the central question: did the institution act according to law? The public deserves that clear answer directly from the records, not political loyalty or institutional defensiveness.