'Will take those decisions back': SC refuses to suspend CEC, but puts 14 disputed ECI decisions on notice

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to pass an interim order suspending Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, but delivered a warning that could unspool the poll panel's most contested decisions. "After notice, if they come and show that ABC decisions were taken without unanimity, we will take those decisions back," a bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant observed. The bench, also comprising Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana, was hearing two petitions alleging that at least 14 decisions linked to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls were taken in the name of the Election Commission of India between October 2025 and August 2026 without the concurrence of the other two Election Commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi. The petitioners relied substantially on a September investigation in The Indian Express, which reported that the two commissioners had formally recorded objections on at least 14 occasions over ten months — covering changes to Form 6, the ERONet and ECINet digital systems, IT allocations, unminuted communications and appeals before a West Bengal tribunal. Their case: Article 324 vests superintendence of elections in the Commission as a collective body, and Section 18 of the 2023 CEC Act requires decisions to be taken unanimously as far as possible, or by majority. The court was unmoved by the prayer for immediate suspension. "Orders cannot be passed on the basis of newspaper reports alone," it held, declining ex parte interim relief. But it issued notices to the Centre, the Election Commission, the CEC, both Election Commissioners, Deputy Election Commissioner Maneesh Garg and DG (IT) Seema Khanna, seeking responses within a week. The next hearing is on October 26. The ECI has maintained that its decisions, including those on the SIR, were unanimous and that internal objections and written notes are standard mechanisms in any multi-member constitutional body. Senior advocate Menaka Goswamy, appearing for petitioner Rakesh Kumar Singh of Patna, countered that 16 lakh appeals remain pending before appellate tribunals and that those excluded have already missed one election cycle. The ruling came as protests demanding Kumar's resignation entered another week. Aam Aadmi Party workers marched to India Gate in New Delhi on Sunday, the Delhi Police investigation into alleged sexual harassment of three women journalists during the protests continued, and Rahul Gandhi launched a 'Satyagraha' digital platform to map protest movements across the country. The INDIA bloc has scheduled a march to the ECI headquarters on October 6, and the Gen-Z-led Cockroach Janata Party has called a massive mobilisation at Jantar Mantar on October 10. For the court, the question is now procedural but the stakes are constitutional: whether the most powerful election body in the world's largest democracy has been operating as a one-man commission. Its own records, due within a week, will supply the answer.