Supreme Court to Hear Next Week Plea Asking for CEC Gyanesh Kumar to Step Aside
New Delhi: The Supreme Court said on Tuesday that it will take up next week a petition that wants Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar stopped from doing his job until the case is fully heard. Senior advocate Vikas Singh stood up before Chief Justice Surya Kant and asked for an early date. He was appearing for the petitioner, Rakesh Kumar Singh. Singh told the court that the Election Commission is supposed to work as a team of three. Decisions should be taken together, either by everyone agreeing or by majority if they don’t. He said the way things have been going, there is real doubt whether that is actually happening. The Chief Justice simply said the matter would be listed next week. The petition asks the court to order that Gyanesh Kumar should not act as Chief Election Commissioner while the case is pending. In the meantime, it wants the other two Election Commissioners — Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi — to run the Commission by mutual agreement. If a vacancy comes up, the petition says any new appointment should go through a committee that includes the Chief Justice of India. What triggered all this are reports that roughly 14 decisions were taken in the name of the Election Commission between October last year and August this year, even though Sandhu and Joshi had put their objections on record. The petition talks about written notes and formal communications from the two Commissioners. Those objections cover things like letters and orders that went out without their say-so, meetings that had no proper agenda or minutes, changes made to Form 6 (the form people fill to get on the voter list), control over the big voter databases, shifts in how IT work was assigned, and appeals filed in the Commission’s name before tribunals in West Bengal. The basic argument is simple. The Constitution gives the power to run elections to the Election Commission as a whole, not to one person. The 2023 law that covers the appointment and service of the Commissioners also says decisions should be collective. Where there is disagreement, majority wins. The petition wants the court to ask Kumar to explain under what authority he has been acting as if he alone can exercise those powers. Apart from the temporary stay, the petition asks for the Commission’s original files to be produced. It also wants an independent inquiry — either a judicial commission or a special investigation team headed by a retired Supreme Court judge — to look into how those 14 decisions were taken. This is the second case in the Supreme Court that questions how the Commission has been working under Kumar. An earlier one had asked for criminal action linked to the big Special Intensive Revision of voter lists. That revision has already removed a huge number of names across the country and has been the subject of a lot of political heat. The Election Commission has said that differences among the three members are normal and that the final decisions, including those on the voter-list revision, were taken by everyone together. After the reports came out, the three Commissioners met, issued a joint statement, and even released a photograph of themselves standing together. Still, the petition insists the written objections raise serious questions about whether some of the steps taken in the Commission’s name really had the backing of the full body. It says the whole point of having three Commissioners is to stop one person from running the show alone. When the court hears the matter next week, it will first look at the request to keep Kumar from functioning as CEC for now. It will also have to consider the larger point about how the Commission is supposed to take decisions. The petitioner has asked that all the relevant records be kept safe so nothing disappears while the case goes on. For the moment, the Supreme Court’s decision to list the petition next week means these questions will come up in open court soon. Given how central the Election Commission is to free and fair elections, a lot of people will be watching what happens. Sources: The Tribune, LiveLaw, Deccan Chronicle, The Indian Express, NewsX, WION, Economic Times, Outlook India. @Rohit Manral