SIR A Unanimous Decision; No Amendments Made To Form 6: ECI Submits Before Supreme Court

The Election Commission of India has filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court in response to the petition filed against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar alleging that he took decisions unilaterally in the name of the Election Commission of India without the approval of the other two Election Commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi.

Filed through Bhanu Prakash Yeturu, Deputy Election Commissioner, ECI, the affidavit states the SIR Orders as well as latest Orders to schedule SIR in other States and Union Territories were issued in accordance with decisions of the Election Commission of India arrived at unanimously and taken in due compliance of Article 324 of the Constitution of India read with Section 18 of the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023.

Supreme Court has further been informed that in any decision-making process of the ECI, suggestions, observations, varying views or queries by any Official in the chain of command are taken into consideration for arriving at the decision by the competent authority.

"This remains a common process, both where there is a hierarchy in the command and / or in the case of any multi-member entity such as the Election Commission of India. The views by ECs / CEC of the Commission during the decision-making process on the subjects before them — are considered for arriving at the decision. It is upon consideration of all the views placed before the Commission that the decision is taken and the orders are issued in accordance with the process..", the court has been informed.

ECI has also unequivocally rejected the misleading contention made before Supreme Court that Form 6 — as has been provided in the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, has been amended by the Election Commission and has clarified that Form 6 can only be amended by the Central government.

The Supreme Court has further been told the constitution of the Election Commission of India was and is in accordance with law. It is further submitted that the averments made before court in the Writ Petition, are based solely on a single newspaper report and they seek extra-ordinary reliefs, merely based on the extrapolation of a news report.

"In the eyes of law, a newspaper report is not treated as evidence of the facts it narrates. The Commission has neither released nor authorized the release of any internal note / file to any news agency. A public interest petition built on such material calls for its conclusions to be examined with circumspection," the affidavit states.

The prayer made for restraining CEC Gyanesh Kumar are stated to not be maintainable. "Three Members are appointed to the Commission so that, in case of a difference of opinion, a majority can be arrived at and decisions taken under Section 18 of the 2023 Act. Any prayer for restraint against the functioning of the CEC is not maintainable and even otherwise, having regard to the principle of unanimity / majority envisaged under Section 18 of the 2023 Act, would deserve to be rejected by the Orders of this Hon'ble Court. Any such prayer shall also not be maintainable being in the teeth of / contrary to the provisions of Section 18 of the 2023 Act and shall also have the effect of frustrating the functioning / decision making by the ECI in accordance with and in conformity with the scheme of the 2023 Act," the court has been told.

About the Petition

The Petition, drawn by Advocate Sudeep Gupta and filed through AOR Mudit Gupta, arises from a body of contemporaneous, written, on record material, namely file notings and formal communications by two of the three sitting Election Commissioners, Dr. Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Dr. Vivek Joshi, addressed to the Commission's own officers and, on at least C two occasions, to the Cabinet Secretary of India, recording, between 28 October 2025 and 14 August 2026, at least fourteen distinct objections to steps taken in the name of the Election Commission without what the two Commissioners describe as the Commission's approval.

As per the petition, these objections concern communications and orders issued in the name of the Election Commission without the Commission's approval; an absence, for over a year, of agendas circulated before, and minutes circulated after, meetings of the Commission; foreign travel undertaken without the Commission's approval; a substantive change made in July 2026 to the statutory Form 6 despite an on file warning by Commissioner Joshi, concurred in by Commissioner Sandhu, that such a change could not lawfully be made without an amendment to the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960; the alleged progressive centralisation, in the Commission's own IT establishment, of control over access to the ERONet/ECINet electoral roll database, said to bypass the statutory Electoral Registration Officers; a change to the internal work allocation order removing a layer of oversight over that IT establishment, made, the two Commissioners say, without their knowledge, and which they purported to strike down; and the filing of appeals, on behalf of the Election Commission, before Court constituted tribunals in West Bengal, without the two Commissioners being informed of who authorised those appeals or under what authority.

Other Petitions Filed Against ECI/SIR

Notably, Opposition leaders led by Rahul Gandhi have also moved a petition before Supreme Court alleging that the Chief Election Commissioner exercised the "collective powers" of the Election Commission of India on his own during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, and have asked the Court to call for the Commission's files, minutes and notings to test whether its decisions were lawfully taken.

The writ petition, filed under Article 32 of the Constitution by Gandhi, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, and Mallikarjun Kharge, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, along with other party leaders and Members of Parliament, also questions the modification of the statutory Form 6, the design and operation of the ECINET and ERONET electoral-roll databases, and the "large-scale exclusion of electors without adequate notice, hearing or an effective mechanism for restoration."

AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi has moved the Supreme Court challenging the manner in which Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is being done.

Case Title: Rakesh Singh vs Union of India