New Delhi: The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on Monday a batch of pleas seeking suspension of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar as well as the initiation of criminal proceedings against the top eelction official. The pleas challenge the manner in which the poll panel led by him took decisions, allegedly without the approval of two election commissioners.
A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana is scheduled to hear the pleas filed by Rakesh Kumar Singh and advocate Shailendra Mani Tripathi, who have also challenged the decisions, guidelines and software changes allegedly made by Kumar without the concurrence of his two colleagues.
The Public Interest Litigation (PIL), filed by Patna resident Rakesh Kumar Singh, has urged the top court to determine whether Kumar has been individually exercising powers that legally belong to the Election Commission (EC) as a whole, and, if so, to declare those actions unauthorised and take appropriate legal action.
"Direct that respondent No.3 (CEC) shall not exercise the functions of Chief Election Commissioner of India pending final hearing of the present petition; direct that during such period, the business of the Commission be transacted by the unanimous decision of respondent Nos. 4 (Sukhbir Singh Sandhu) and 5 (Vivek Joshi); and direct that any appointment to the resulting vacancy be made upon the recommendation of a Committee, including the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India," the plea reads.
It demanded suspension of Kumar pending the final hearing of the petition to preserve the "multi-member character of the Election Commission."
The plea comes against the backdrop of an Indian Express report that claimed that election commissioners Sandhu and Joshi objected on record at least 14 times over the past 10 months to decisions and orders on Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls that they said were issued without their knowledge or recommendation.
Under fire, the EC said differing views and observations are a normal part of deliberations in any institution and all its orders carry full legal sanction and follow established statutory procedures.
The petition has made the Union Law Ministry, the poll panel, Kumar, Sandhu, Joshi, and Maneesh Garg, a senior official of the poll panel, as parties.
Tripathi's plea, filed through advocate Chand Qureshi, has alleged that the CEC's actions violate the statutory requirement of collective decision-making.
The plea also seeks initiation of criminal proceedings against the CEC and other officials for breach of official duty.
"Divested of any statutory or constitutional immunity, the Chief Election Commissioner remains directly accountable under the law -- subject to police investigation, evidence gathering, and regular trial proceedings as an ordinary accused," the plea states.
Tripathi has relied on the provisions of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023, particularly Section 18, which provides for decision-making by the EC and says that where there is a difference of opinion, the view of the majority prevails.
One of the main issues the plea raises is the alteration of Form 6, which the people use to register as voters. It alleges that the requirement relating to ancestral details and link with the previous SIR was introduced through the election panel's software without the statutory amendment required under the electoral rules.
According to the petition, the two election commissioners other than Kumar objected to the change and asserted that the prescribed form could not be altered without following the statutory procedure.
"Issue a writ of mandamus or any other appropriate writ, order, or direction declaring all decisions, guidelines, directives, and software modifications initiated, approved, or implemented under CEC Gyanesh Kumar without full commission concurrence or contrary to the majority opinion of the Election Commissioners as unconstitutional, ultra vires, and void ab initio," the plea says.
Concerns over the handling of electoral roll revisions in Goa and West Bengal were also mentioned in the plea, which alleged that the software lacked the feature to restore 97 eligible electors in Goa despite directions for their verification.
In West Bengal, the petitioner claimed that more than 16.10 lakh appeals were filed in the EC's name against voters whose names were restored by judicial officers.
The other two election commissioners and the West Bengal chief electoral officer were not aware of these appeals, nor did they authorise them, the plea says.