PIL In Supreme Court Says CEC Gyanesh Kumar Has No Immunity, Seeks Criminal Accountability Over Voter Roll Changes

The petition, filed by a practicing Advocate Shailendra Mani Tripathi through AoR Chand Qureshi, states that it brings to light "unprecedented constitutional fractures and illegalities committed within the Election Commission of India under Chief Election Commissioner Shri Gyanesh Kumar, as exposed by documentary records published on September 23, 2026."

It draws its factual foundation from an investigative report published that day, which the petition says shows that between November 2025 and August 2026, the other two Election Commissioners, Dr. Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Dr. Vivek Joshi, formally recorded written dissents on at least 14 occasions; including four times in a single day, against decisions taken and executed in the Commission's name.

What the petition alleges

The petition lists five specific acts it characterises as illegal. On changes to voter registration Form 6, it states that a mandatory "ancestral condition", requiring first-time young voters to establish a "last SIR linkage", was introduced "without legislative authority or amendment of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960," and was "explicitly branded as 'unauthorised and illegal' by a majority of the Commission."

On the electoral database, it alleges that decentralised Electoral Registration Officers were stripped of their statutory authority under Sections 13B, 22 and 23 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, with electoral roll management centralised under the Director General of IT in Delhi. On Goa, it alleges that 97 eligible electors were knowingly locked out of restoration despite judicial directions, owing to what it calls an intentional omission of a "rollback" facility in the software.

On West Bengal, it alleges that over 16.10 lakh appeals were filed in the ECI's name to purge citizens who had been restored by 700 judicial officers, without the knowledge of the other two Commissioners or the state's Chief Electoral Officer. And on internal governance, it points to a July 28, 2026 work-reallocation order by Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Maneesh Garg, which it says bypassed the Commission and prompted the two Election Commissioners to approach the Cabinet Secretary directly.

The immunity argument

The petition's central legal argument is that the statutory shield under Section 16 of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023, which bars courts from entertaining proceedings against the CEC, applies only to acts done "in the discharge or purported discharge of official duty," and that manipulating the electoral roll falls outside that protection. Invoking the principle that fraud unravels everything, it states: "Once the logical and legal coherence between the act and the official obligation ceases to exist, the doctrine of 'reasonable nexus' breaks down completely."

The petition relies on the Supreme Court's rulings in State of Uttar Pradesh v. Paras Nath Singh (2009) and Devinder Singh (2016) for the proposition that an official position can provide the opportunity to commit an act but cannot confer legitimacy on criminal conduct. It further submits that without a reasonable nexus to official duty, the requirement of prior sanction under Section 218 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, the successor to Section 197 of the CrPC, also ceases to apply.

"The Chief Election Commissioner enjoys no personal immunity from criminal prosecution."

On constitutional protection, the petition notes that absolute personal immunity from criminal proceedings is reserved under Article 361 for the President and Governors alone, and that Article 324 secures only the CEC's tenure, not immunity from personal criminal liability. It cites the Constitution Bench's observation in Mohinder Singh Gill (1978) that the Election Commission is not "a law unto itself," and its ruling in T.N. Seshan v. Union of India (1995) mandating majority-based decision-making within the Commission, which the petition says was violated. It also invokes Section 18 of the 2023 Act, which requires Commission business to be transacted by majority.

The petition concludes that, absent statutory or constitutional immunity, alleged tampering with the electoral roll would amount to a cognizable offence under Section 32 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, along with provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita relating to falsification of records and public servants disobeying directions of law; leaving the CEC, in its words, "subject to police investigation, evidence gathering, and regular trial proceedings as an ordinary accused."