New Delhi, Oct 26 The Election Commission on Monday strongly defended its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls before the Supreme Court, maintaining that the exercise was authorised by law and the relevant orders were approved unanimously by all three members of the Commission.
Rejecting the allegations that Form 6 had been amended, the poll panel, in its 248-page response to the petition against chief the election commissioner (CEC) and the decisions taken by it, said that no changes were made to the statutory Form 6 used for voter registration.
A bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant is scheduled to hear on Tuesday petitions against CEC Gyanesh Kumar and the decisions taken by the poll panel during the SIR.
In a counter affidavit, the poll body sought summary dismissal of the petitions and called the allegations “misconceived” which rested on a single newspaper report.
“The attempt to make aspersions against the Election Commission is unfortunate,” said the affidavit, filed by Deputy Election Commissioner Bhanu Prakash Yeturu on behalf of the Commission.
The EC said the affidavit itself had been approved for filing by a unanimous decision of all three members of the Commission.
It said the SIR orders of June 24, 2025, October 27, 2025 and May 14, 2026 were issued on unanimous decisions taken in compliance with Article 324 of the Constitution and Section 18 of the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023.
Section 18 requires the Commission’s business to be transacted unanimously as far as possible, and by majority where members differ.
It said the three SIR orders were issued in accordance with decisions of the EC 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.
The poll body said any suggestion, observation or query raised by a commissioner while a file is being processed “does not constitute a decision” of the Commission.
It explained that files move first to one election commissioner, then to the other and finally to the CEC, and that approved decisions bear the signatures of all three. Where urgent orders are needed and members are not available in person, approval is taken by electronic means and recorded on the file later, it said.
On the Form 6 row, the EC said it “unequivocally rejects the misleading contention” that the statutory form had been changed.
Form 6 is an application through which an eligible person seeks inclusion in the electoral rolls, it said.
According to the affidavit, the declaration attached during the SIR is a separate document provided by the SIR orders and “is not a part of Form 6”.
It said the declaration used in the Bihar SIR was later replaced in the subsequent orders so that applicants could give details of themselves, their parents or grandparents from the 2002-03 rolls and avoid submitting further documents once successfully mapped.
The Commission, however, admitted that the way the declaration was displayed on its online platform “could be construed as though an amendment of Form 6 had been made”.
It said the declaration had been merged into the online Form 6 page so that applicants would need only one OTP and one e-sign instead of two.
After deliberation, the Electoral Rolls Division decided on October 21 that online applications will now also be in two parts, as is the case with physical forms.
Responding to allegations concerning communications between the election commissioners and the cabinet secretary, the poll body said an office order on internal work allocation was issued on July 28 by an IAS officer of additional secretary rank posted on deputation to the Commission.
The two election commissioners wrote separate letters to the cabinet secretary the next day about the order and the officer’s conduct, and the order “was never implemented” in view of their joint direction of July 30, the EC said.
The affidavit also said that the Commission decided unanimously on September 26 that booth level officers (BLOs) will visit the homes of persons who received notices during the ongoing SIR to collect documents, so that they need not appear in person for hearings. Hearings will be held only in exceptional cases and preferably online, it said.
On concerns about its ECINet portal, the EC said no entry is added, deleted or modified except by order of the electoral registration officer (ERO).
A committee headed by a senior deputy election commissioner, with independent experts from IIT Bombay and IISc Bengaluru, was constituted on October 14 to check the portal’s compliance with the law, it said.
The poll body also said that appeals filed in West Bengal against orders including electors in the rolls were filed by officers of the state chief electoral officer’s office acting as statutory authorities in line with the apex court’s orders, and that “these matters were not brought to the Commission”.
Questioning the maintainability of the pleas, the Commission said, “In the eyes of law, a newspaper report is not treated as evidence of the facts it narrates.”
The Commission added that it has “neither released nor authorised the release of any internal note/ file to any news agency”.
Citing Article 324(5) of the Constitution, which protects the CEC from removal except in the manner of a Supreme Court judge, the EC said any prayer to restrain the CEC from functioning was not maintainable.
Such a prayer would frustrate decision-making under the 2023 Act, it said.
It also rejected the petitioner’s contentions on electronic voting machines (EVMs).
The EC said similar challenges had been rejected by the top court several times.
The pleas were filed after The Indian Express reported on September 25 that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi objected on record at least 14 times over the last 10 months to decisions and orders on SIR of electoral rolls that they said were issued without their knowledge or recommendation. The claim has sparked protests by opposition parties and the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), demanding removal of CEC Kumar.
(PTI News)
