Supreme Court Agrees To Hear Next Week Plea Against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar Allegedly Taking Unilateral Decisions

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear next week 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.

Senior Advocate Vikas Singh mentioned the plea before a bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana.

"The purpose of having a multi-member Commission was that a decision be taken unanimously or by majority. Now, the way the Election Commission has functioned, there is serious doubt about whether there was a decision of the Election Commission for this entire exercise of special intensive revision. Because if the Commission has not taken a unanimous decision, then this... What the Court has also decided is on the basis that it is a Commission's decision. So it is a serious issue," Singh said.

"List it next week," the CJI went on to direct.

The Petition 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.

Accordingly, the plea seeks a writ in the nature of quo warranto in respect of Kumar who has purported to act, and continues to act, as though the powers vested by Article 324 in the Election Commission as a constitutional body were exercisable by him individually as its Chairman.

Notably, another petition filed before the Supreme Court has argued that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar enjoys no personal immunity from criminal prosecution over what it describes as the unilateral and unauthorised alteration of India's electoral rolls, and that he can be investigated and tried "as an ordinary accused."

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.