The referee on trial: Supreme Court hears pleas to suspend CEC Gyanesh Kumar today

The country's top court turns its gaze on the country's top election official today. A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana, is scheduled to hear two writ petitions that put the Election Commission's internal decision-making under judicial scrutiny and seek the suspension of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. The petitions allege that a series of decisions, guidelines and software changes connected to the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls were taken in the name of the Election Commission without the concurrence of Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi. According to the petitioners, the two Commissioners recorded at least 14 objections between October 2025 and August 2026, yet the disputed decisions were issued anyway. One petition, filed by Patna resident Rakesh Kumar Singh under Article 32, argues that the Election Commission is a multi-member constitutional body whose business must be transacted collectively, and that the Chief Election Commissioner cannot individually exercise powers that Article 324 vests in the Commission as a body. The plea seeks a writ of quo warranto calling on Kumar to show under what authority he has acted as though entitled to exercise the Commission's collective power, and asks the court to examine the Commission's original records to determine whether the disputed actions were taken in accordance with the Constitution and the law. As interim relief, Singh's petition asks that Kumar be directed not to exercise the functions of Chief Election Commissioner pending final hearing, that the Commission's business be transacted in the meantime by the unanimous decision of Sandhu and Joshi, and that any appointment to the resulting vacancy be made on the recommendation of a committee including the Chief Justice of India. The petition cites the Supreme Court's 1995 T.N. Seshan judgment: to treat the CEC's word as final would render the other Commissioners "nonfunctional or ornamental." The second petition, filed by advocate Shailendra Mani Tripathi, seeks the quashing of the 14 decisions alleged to have been taken unilaterally, and the constitution of an independent judicial inquiry commission or Special Investigation Team headed by a retired Supreme Court judge, assisted by cybersecurity and IT experts. Senior advocate Vikas Singh mentioned the matter orally before the CJI on September 29, submitting that "the way the Election Commission is functioning, there is serious doubt over whether the decisions are unanimous." The Election Commission has maintained that its decisions were taken collectively. The hearing lands amid a rolling confrontation between the poll panel and the public. Youth-led protests demanding Kumar's resignation have seen detentions in Delhi and Mumbai for three straight days; the INDIA bloc has announced an MPs' march to the Election Commission headquarters in New Delhi on October 6 and district-level demonstrations on October 13 and 14. Whatever the bench decides, the day the Supreme Court debated suspending the referee will be remembered as a landmark in the fight over who controls the vote.