Why Has a Plea Been Filed Against CEC Gyanesh Kumar Over the SIR Exercise?

A plea filed against CEC Gyanesh Kumar reached the Supreme Court this week, with the bench agreeing on September 29 to hear next week a petition alleging that India's Chief Election Commissioner took major decisions on the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls unilaterally, without the concurrence of the Election Commission's other two members.

The plea, mentioned before Chief Justice of India Surya Kant by senior advocate Vikas Singh, argues that India's Election Commission is constitutionally a multi-member body whose decisions must reflect unanimity or majority consensus, and raises serious doubt over whether the sweeping SIR exercise actually carried the backing of the full Commission. The petition asks the court to declare the SIR and all consequential actions taken under it void ab initio, and separately seeks to restrain Kumar from functioning as CEC while the matter is under consideration.

What Triggered This Specific Legal Challenge?

The controversy traces back to an investigative report published by The Indian Express, which detailed sustained friction inside the three-member Election Commission involving CEC Gyanesh Kumar and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi. 

According to that reporting, Sandhu and Joshi formally raised objections at least 14 times over a ten-month period regarding decisions and orders tied to electoral rolls and the SIR process, a pattern the current petition argues points to a functional breakdown in the Commission's collective decision-making structure. This marks the second petition to reach the Supreme Court on this specific controversy; a separate plea filed last week by advocate Shailendra Mani Tripathi sought criminal prosecution of Kumar, along with Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Maneesh Garg and ECI Director General Seema Khanna, over allegedly unilateral software modifications tied to the electoral roll system.

How Does This Fit Into the Broader SIR Controversy?

The Special Intensive Revision itself is not new to litigation. The Supreme Court had already upheld the legal legitimacy of the SIR exercise on May 27, 2026, ruling it consonant with the Representation of the People Act and affirming the Commission's constitutional obligation to conduct free and fair elections. Phase II of the exercise, launched on October 27, 2025, covered nine states and three union territories, following an earlier rollout that had already drawn political controversy over concerns that the revision process risked disenfranchising eligible voters, particularly among marginalised and migrant populations.

A few key details help frame where this legal challenge currently stands:

• The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the fresh petition against CEC Kumar next week, though no specific date had been confirmed as of September 29.

• The petition seeks production of the Election Commission's original internal records and an independent inquiry, potentially through a Special Investigation Team headed by a retired Supreme Court judge.

• A separate application before the Attorney General seeks consent to initiate criminal contempt proceedings against Kumar, running on a parallel legal track.

• The Supreme Court had already upheld the SIR exercise's legality in May 2026, meaning this new petition challenges the Commission's internal process rather than the exercise's underlying legal basis.

• The Election Commission has not issued a detailed public rebuttal to the specific allegations of unilateral decision-making raised in the petition.

Why Does This Matter for India's Democratic Institutions?

For a democracy of India's scale, where the Election Commission's credibility underpins the legitimacy of elections involving nearly a billion eligible voters, allegations of internal dysfunction inside the Commission itself carry weight well beyond the specific SIR exercise under challenge. Whether the Supreme Court finds merit in the claims of unilateral decision-making or dismisses them, the coming hearing is likely to prompt broader scrutiny of how India's constitutionally mandated multi-member Commission actually functions behind closed doors, a question that touches every election the body oversees going forward.