Fabrication, Unauthorized Litigation: Plea Before Supreme Court Against CEC Gyanesh Kumar's Alleged Unilateral Decisions And Electoral Roll Manipulations

A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition is filed under Article 32 of the Constitution of India, inter alia, seeking directions against all decisions, guidelines, directives, and software modifications initiated, approved, or implemented under Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

The plea alleges that the decisions were taken without full Commission concurrence or contrary to the majority opinion of the other Election Commissioners.

As reported by The Indian Express, Election Commissioners Dr. Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Dr. Vivek Joshi registered written dissents on record on at least 14 separate occasions over a 10-month period. The objections pertained to administrative decisions and official orders issued without the knowledge, consent, or participation of the full Commission, four of which occurred on a single day.

AOR Chand Qureshi filed the petition

The Petitioner, Shailendra Mani Tripathi, a practising advocate, also seeks directions to quash the alleged unauthorized modifications made to Form 6 on the ECINet/ERONet.

As regards the matter concerning West Bengal SIR, it is stated in the plea that when Appellate Tribunals presided over by retired High Court judges heard appeals against wrongful exclusions, between 90% and 93% of deleted voters were restored, establishing the reckless, arbitrary, and legally flawed nature of the Commission's initial purges.

The petition submits, "In August 2026, Election Commissioner Sandhu recorded in writing: "Who was authorised to file these appeals on behalf of ECI, and by whom?" and "Who actually filed these appeals on behalf of ECI?" Neither Commissioner Sandhu, nor Commissioner Joshi, nor the West Bengal CEO had any knowledge or authorization of these 16.10 lakh appeals. This represents a fabricated, unauthorized litigation abuse designed to disenfranchise judicial beneficiaries."

The plea is filed against the Ministry of Law & Justice, the Election Commission of India, CEC Gyanesh Kumar, the Cabinet Secretary and others.

It highlights that the investigative report demonstrates that Election Commissioners Dr Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Dr Vivek Joshi repeatedly recorded written dissents and formal objections on at least 14 occasions across 10 months (from November 2025 to August 2026) against actions executed by the CEC and senior bureaucrats. For over four months (May to September 2026), no formal full-Commission meeting was convened, and orders were issued unilaterally without circulated agendas or post-meeting minutes.

The Plea says that a proposal was mooted within the Commission to add an intrusive clause to Form 6 (the statutory form for registering new voters), demanding whether the applicant's parents or grandparents featured in the "last SIR" roll.

On May 16, 2026, Election Commissioner Vivek Joshi formally noted on file that Form 6 is a statutory instrument under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, and cannot be amended without the Union Government making formal rule amendments through Gazette Notification. On May 19, 2026, Election Commissioner Sukhbir Singh Sandhu formally concurred.

"Defying this binding majority, Respondent No. 3, acting in concert with Respondent No. 6 (DG-IT), altered Form 6 digitally on the ECINet portal in July 2026. On August 13, 2026, Commissioner Sandhu formally recorded that this alteration was "unauthorised and illegal" and was causing arbitrary harassment to young, eligible first-time electors, ordering its immediate withdrawal. Despite this, the unauthorized form was kept live on the portal", the plea says.

It is submitted in the plea that Commissioner Joshi placed on record an objection against the "gradual centralisation of the electoral roll database" and formally requested an external security audit by IIT experts to ensure no central entity could manipulate voter rolls. This proposal was endorsed by Commissioner Sandhu on July 13, 2026, but was unilaterally stonewalled by Kumar.

The Plea says, "the ECINet portal deliberately lacked a software "rollback/reversal" module to record these additions. Between February 11 and February 17, 2026, the Goa CEO’s office issued eight formal communications to Respondent No. 6 (DG-IT) and Senior DEC Gyanesh Bharti, begging for system enablement. The IT Division deliberately failed to rectify the software, leading to the outright disenfranchisement of all 97 eligible electors."

It is alleged that on July 29, 2026, Election Commissioners Sandhu and Joshi took the unprecedented step of formally petitioning Cabinet Secretary T.V. Somanathan, terming Garg's action a "clear violation of Section 18" of the 2023 Act and demanding strict disciplinary action. It is added that on July 30, 2026, Commissioners Sandhu and Joshi jointly nullified and quashed Garg's order.

"Because the centralisation of databases via ECINet, controlled by Respondent No. 6 (DG-IT) without statutory sanction, strips local EROs of statutory jurisdiction and violates the legislative scheme crafted by Parliament", it adds.

The petitioner submits that deliberately denying software rollbacks in Goa to disenfranchise 97 verified citizens, forging/authorizing 16.10 lakh phantom appeals in West Bengal, and illegally modifying Form 6 constitute direct, cognizable breaches of official duty under Section 32, demanding immediate prosecution of the concerned public functionaries.

It is added that the Chief Election Commissioner enjoys no personal immunity from criminal prosecution.

"Additionally, Section 16 of the 2023 Act contains no explicit bar against police investigation or arrest. Consequently, in the absence of a reasonable nexus, tampering with the electoral roll constitutes a cognizable offense under Section 32 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, as well as provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) concerning falsification of records and public servants disobeying directions of law. In such a scenario, 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", it adds.

The plea further prays for quashing and dismissing all 16.10 lakh appeals purportedly filed in the name of the Election Commission of India before the Appellate Tribunals in West Bengal challenging the inclusion of electors by Judicial Officers, on the ground of complete lack of statutory sanction and administrative fraud.

Furthermore, the plea also seeks constitution of an independent, high-powered Judicial Inquiry Commission/Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by a retired Judge of the Supreme Court, with independent cybersecurity/IT experts from IITs, to, inter alia, conduct an end-to-end technical, forensic, and administrative audit of ECINet and ERONet databases and investigate the institutional circumstances under which 13 crore names were deleted across 30 States/UTs under the SIR.

Accordingly, the matter will soon be listed before the Court.

The Supreme Court has recently sought responses from the Election Commission, the West Bengal government and the state poll panel on a PIL seeking disclosure of assembly constituency-wise data of claims and objections filed by deleted voters during the SIR process.

In October, 2025, the Court had refused to entertain a plea seeking an SIT probe headed by a former judge to inquire into allegations of electoral roll manipulation in Bengaluru Central and other constituencies.

Cause Title: Shailendra Mani Tripathi v. Union of India and Ors. [Diary No. 59734/2026]