SC to hear plea seeking Gyanesh Kumar's suspension over 'unilateral' decisions

The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear next week a PIL seeking the suspension of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and challenging the manner in which the Election Commission has allegedly taken certain decisions without the approval of two other Election Commissioners.The matter was mentioned before a bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana.Senior advocate Vikas Singh, who mentioned the plea, told the bench that under the statutory scheme, decisions of the multi-member Election Commission have to be unanimous or taken by majority.“

The way the Election Commission is functioning, there is serious doubt over whether the decisions are unanimous,” Singh submitted.“ We will list this next week,” the CJI said.The PIL, filed by Patna resident Rakesh Kumar Singh, seeks a determination on whether CEC Gyanesh Kumar has been individually exercising powers that legally belong to the Election Commission as a whole. It has sought a declaration that any such actions are unauthorised and appropriate legal action.The plea has sought an interim direction restraining Gyanesh Kumar from functioning as Chief Election Commissioner until the final disposal of the petition.

It has also sought that the business of the Commission during this period be conducted through the unanimous decisions of Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi.The petition comes against the backdrop of an Indian Express report claiming that Sandhu and Joshi had recorded at least 14 objections over a 10-month period to decisions and orders concerning the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, alleging that they were issued without their knowledge or recommendation.The Election Commission, facing questions over the objections raised by the two commissioners, has said that differences of views and observations are a normal part of deliberations in any institution.

It has maintained that all its orders carry full legal sanction and follow established statutory procedures.The petition has named the Union Law Ministry, the Election Commission, CEC Gyanesh Kumar, Election Commissioners Sandhu and Joshi, and senior poll panel official Maneesh Garg as respondents.“ This petition concerns not the fortunes of any individual constitutional functionary, but the constitutional identity of the Election Commission of India itself,” the plea said.It argued that Article 324(1) of the Constitution vests the superintendence, direction and control of elections in “a Commission”, and not in an individual Chief Election Commissioner.The petition said the constitutional framework “deliberately separated membership of the Commission from the chairmanship of the Commission, and separated the chairmanship of the Commission from the Commission’s power”.

According to the plea, Sandhu and Joshi recorded at least 14 objections between October 2025 and August 2026 over various actions attributed to the Election Commission.The objections allegedly concerned communications issued in the name of the Commission without its approval, the absence of agendas and minutes of meetings, changes to statutory Form 6, access to and control of the ERONetECINet electoral-roll database, changes in IT-related work allocation and appeals filed in the name of the Election Commission before West Bengal appellate tribunals.The plea has sought a declaration that powers under Article 324 must be exercised by the Election Commission as a multi-member collegial body and that no communication, order, direction, appeal or other act may be issued in the name of the Commission unless it is based on a unanimous decision or, in case of disagreement, a majority decision.It also relied on written objections allegedly recorded by Sandhu and Joshi, while stressing that the allegations should not be treated as conclusively established merely on the basis of media reports.The petition has asked the Supreme Court to call for the Commission’s primary records, including minutes, agendas, approval sheets, file notings, work-allocation orders, IT-access records, server logs and database-change histories.One of the issues raised concerns the alteration of Form 6, the statutory form used for electoral-roll registration.The plea said Joshi recorded an objection on May 16, 2026, stating that Form 6 could not lawfully be altered to require additional SIR-related disclosures without an amendment to the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.

Sandhu is stated to have concurred with the objection on May 19. The petition also referred to concerns allegedly raised by Joshi over the gradual centralisation of the electoral-roll database and sought an independent audit of database access credentials.It further cited objections concerning access by field-level statutory officers to the ECINet system.The plea has sought directions to the Election Commission and the CEC to preserve all physical and electronic records relevant to the case, including minutes, agendas, file notings, approval sheets and correspondence.It also referred to appeals filed in the name of the Election Commission before appellate tribunals in West Bengal and an alleged objection by Sandhu seeking details of who authorised the appeals and under what authority.The petition has urged the court to examine the legality of the disputed Form 6 alteration and certain IT work-allocation measures, as well as, subject to the records produced before it, the authorisation of the appeals filed in West Bengal.- Ends