Petition in Supreme Court targets CEC over electoral roll disputes and audit demands

A petition has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking action against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar over reports that he took decisions on special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls without the concurrence of the other two election commissioners.

The petition, filed by lawyer Shailendra Mani Tripathi, also asked the court to declare the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) decisions as illegal and sought an independent probe into the deletion of millions of names from the electoral rolls during SIR.

It also sought a forensic audit of the ECINet and ERONet databases used in the SIR process across 30 states and union territories and asked the top court to ensure that the server logs, databases, communications and metadata relating to the applications are preserved from October 1, 2025.

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The petition came after a report in The Indian Express said Kumar’s two colleagues, election commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, had formally objected at least 14 times in the past 10 months to decisions and orders of the poll panel, including those related to the SIR of electoral rolls.

The report also said that state officials in charge of electoral rolls found themselves unable to access the database because of a new technology backbone implemented by the Election Commission of India.

The petition has also sought action against senior deputy election commissioner Manish Garg and ECI director general (Information Technology) Seema Khanna besides the CEC. The petition alleged Garg issued unauthorised work reallocation orders on July 28, bypassing the commission and attempting to “eliminate administrative oversight over the IT division”, which led the two ECs to petition the Cabinet Secretary.

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To be sure, the ECI has refuted criticism of its functioning and reports of internal dissent, clarifying that differing views and observations are a normal part of deliberation in any institution; that all its digital platforms, including ECINet, operate under strict data security protocols to prevent unauthorised tampering or manipulation; and that all its actions were legal.