Supreme Court to hear plea raising doubts over CEC Gyanesh Kumar's decisions next week

Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear next week a petition which raised doubts over the decisions taken by the Election Commission of India led by Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

The matter was mentioned before a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana, news agency PTI reported.

Senior advocate Vikas Singh, who mentioned the matter, told the bench that as per the statutory scheme, decisions of the multi-member Election Commission have to be unanimous or by majority.

"The way the Election Commission is functioning, there is serious doubt over whether the decisions are unanimous," he submitted.

This comes against the backdrop of a controversy following the report that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi formally objected at least 14 times over the past 10 months to decisions and orders of the Election Commission, including on additions, deletion and restoration of voters and changes to the voter registration process.

‘Decisions unanimous’: EC

The ECI, however, has maintained that it took all decisions unanimously.

In the first public meeting of chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and election commissioners SS Sandhu and Vivek Joshi since the controversy began earlier this week, ECI pushed back on criticism of its backend software, set up a review and said any future decisions on new digital initiatives will involve further discussions and checks.

“This press note is issued as per the decisions of the meeting of the commission held on 26.09.2026 and has the approval of the full commission,” the ECI note emphasised, appending a photograph of the CEC and two ECs to drive home the point.

ECI clarified that the letter to cabinet secretary TV Somanathan was not related “to any policy matter of the commission or IT division but related to working of an officer on deputation to ECI”. “The work redistribution orders issued by the concerned officer were not actually implemented after the orders of the two commissioners and the oversight over the IT division by the DEC was never actually withdrawn,” it added.

The poll body defended SIR, stressing that all decisions were unanimous.

“The order for the SIR issued on 24.6.2025 for all the States/UTs, starting with Bihar, followed by West Bengal and 30 other States/UTs was issued with the unanimous approval of the commission. The same has been upheld by the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India vide its order dated 27.5.2026. The schedule for SIR for 12 States and UTs was issued on 27.10.2025 and those for 19 States/ UTs was issued on 14.05.2026 with the unanimous approval of the commission,” the note said.