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EC tells Supreme Court CEC can be removed only like a judge; SIR orders unanimous, plea rests on a news report
In a 15-point affidavit, the Election Commission told the Supreme Court that a plea to restrain CEC Gyanesh Kumar is not maintainable, that he can be removed only as a Supreme Court judge can, that three SIR orders were unanimous and that Form 6 was not amended. It sought time for a detailed reply.
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4 min
The Election Commission of India has told the Supreme Court that a petition seeking to restrain Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar from functioning is not maintainable. In a 15-point affidavit filed on Monday, 26 October, it said that the Chief Election Commissioner can be removed only in the same manner and on the same grounds as a judge of the Supreme Court, that the three orders on the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls were unanimous, and that the petition rests on a single newspaper report. It asked the court for permission to file a detailed reply.
What the Commission argued
The affidavit was approved jointly by Kumar and the two Election Commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi. Its first point is about the law. Article 324(5) of the Constitution says that the Chief Election Commissioner cannot be removed from office except in like manner and on the like grounds as a judge of the Supreme Court. The Commission says this means that a court cannot be asked to restrain him from working, and that any such restraint would run against the statute of 2023 that governs the appointment, conditions of service and term of office of the Commission's members. Another provision of the same law protects the Chief Election Commissioner and the other commissioners from legal action for decisions taken in office.
The second point is about evidence. The Commission says the petition relies on one newspaper article, which the petitioner himself described as investigative reportage that needs to be verified, and that a news report cannot be treated as proof of the facts it describes. It also notes that the petitioner does not dispute that the Commission was lawfully constituted. The reports available do not name the petitioner, and they do not give the date of the next hearing or the bench.
The Special Intensive Revision orders
The Commission said that all three orders on the revision, issued on 24 June 2025, 27 October 2025 and 14 May 2026, were approved unanimously by the three members. This answers a claim reported in a newspaper, which says that the two Election Commissioners objected at least 14 times over 10 months to decisions that, they said, had been issued without their knowledge or recommendation. The Commission's affidavit does not take up that number directly.
The affidavit also deals with Form 6, the form that a voter uses to apply for inclusion in the electoral roll. The Commission said that the form has not been amended, since only the Centre can amend it, and that the declaration required in the revision is a separate document. It admitted that the online display could be read as an amendment, and said that from 21 October the online application has been split into the form and the declaration, as in the paper version. The point matters because the opposition has said that the revision places new burdens on voters by changing what they must sign.
The Commission said that its reply was short because of the Dussehra vacation, and it asked for time to file a detailed response. That is a normal request, and the court usually grants it. The affidavit is therefore an opening statement and not the final word.
The filing comes in the same week that the opposition INDIA bloc plans a symbolic public impeachment of Kumar on 30 October and a march to Ramlila Maidan on 1 November, and as Rahul Gandhi has asked traders to press the Prime Minister to remove him. The opposition's case is that the revision has deleted lakhs of genuine voters, and it calls the Chief Election Commissioner a participant in vote theft. The Commission's case, in this filing, is mostly about procedure: that the removal of the Chief Election Commissioner is a matter for Parliament under a strict rule, not for a court order, and that the evidence offered is not enough.
The questions that the court has to answer are narrow ones. It has to decide whether the petition can go forward at all, and, if it can, what material it will examine. The broader argument about the fairness of the revision is being fought in other petitions and in public, and the affidavit does not settle it.
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4 min
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