Plea filed in SC against CEC Gyanesh Kumar over SIR decisions, seeks SIT inquiry

NEW DELHI: A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar over alleged unilateral decisions taken in connection with the Election Commission (ECI) electoral roll revision exercise, including the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll.

The petitioner has also sought a Special Investigation Team (SIT) inquiry into the alleged deletion of around 13 crore voters from electoral rolls.The plea seeks a declaration that decisions allegedly taken without the concurrence of the other two election commissioners are illegal and calls for restoration of the original Form 6 used for voter registration. It also seeks prosecution of Gyanesh Kumar, deputy election commissioner Maneesh Garg and ECI IT head Seema Khanna for alleged violations of duties under the Representation of the People Act.

The petition follows a report by The Indian Express stating that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally objected at least 14 times over the past 10 months to decisions concerning the addition, deletion and restoration of voters and changes to the voter registration process.The petitioner has sought prosecution of Gyanesh Kumar under Section 32 of the Representation of the People Act.EC has maintained that all decisions, including those relating to SIR, were unanimous and taken with the approval of both Election Commissioners and the CEC.