NEW DELHI, SEP 29 (PTI & AGENCIES): The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear next week a PIL seeking suspension of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and challenging the manner in which the poll panel led by him took decisions allegedly without the approval of two Election Commissioners.
The matter was mentioned before a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana.
The core of the dispute during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) revolves around an additional declaration requirement introduced into the Form 6 process.
The ECI countered by stating that Form 6 itself was never legally altered. Instead, they maintain that the new declaration is simply an additional administrative requirement meant to streamline verification and prevent logical discrepancies.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) added a new online requirement to Form 6. First-time and young voters are now asked to declare if their parents or grandparents were registered in the previous SIR roll.
Opposition leaders allege that over 13.3 crore voter names have been unjustly and illegally deleted through a controversial addition in form 6.
Critics and former officials argue that the nationwide scope of the SIR violates Section 21 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950. Senior advocate Vikas Singh, who mentioned the matter, told the bench that as per the statutory scheme, decisions of the multi-member Election Commission have to be unanimous or by majority.
“The way the Election Commission is functioning, there is serious doubt over whether the decisions are unanimous,” he submitted. “We will list this next week”, the CJI said.
The PIL, filed by Patna resident Rakesh Kumar Singh, has urged the top court to determine whether CEC Kumar has been individually exercising powers that legally belong to the Election Commission as a whole, and, if so, to declare those actions unauthorised and take appropriate legal action.
The plea comes in the backdrop of a report in the Indian Express which claimed that Election Commissioners Sandhu and Joshi had objected on record at least 14 times over the past 10 months to decisions and orders on Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls that they said were issued without their knowledge or recommendation
Under fire over the red flags raised by two of its commissioners over the SIR process, the EC has asserted that differing views and observations are a normal part of deliberations in any institution and all its orders carry full legal sanction and follow established statutory procedures.
The petition has made the Union Law Ministry, the poll panel, CEC Kumar, Sandhu Joshi and Maneesh Garg, a senior official of the poll panel, as parties.
The petition requests a writ of Quo Warranto questioning the CEC’s authority to act without consensus and seeks to restrain him from functioning while the case is pending.
Former Union Home Secretary R.K. Singh published an open letter accusing CEC Gyanesh Kumar of conducting illegal deletions during the SIR process and called for opposition unity. Political Demands: The Congress Working Committee (CWC) and opposition parties have demanded the removal of CEC Kumar, the suspension of the SIR process, and the restoration of deleted voter entries.
