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Business News›News›India›SC to hear on Oct 5 pleas for suspension of CEC Gyanesh Kumar, undoing 'unauthorised' actions

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SC to hear on Oct 5 pleas for suspension of CEC Gyanesh Kumar, undoing 'unauthorised' actions
Synopsis

The Supreme Court plans to hear pleas regarding Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar's alleged unilateral decisions and actions. Petitioners Rakesh Kumar Singh and Shailendra Mani Tripathi challenge Kumar's adherence to collective decision-making principles. They seek his suspension pending a final ruling and the appointment of officials based on consensus.

ANI

New Delhi: The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on Monday a batch of pleas seeking suspension of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and challenging the manner in which the poll panel led by him took decisions, allegedly without the approval of two election commissioners.



A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana is scheduled to hear the pleas filed by Rakesh Kumar Singh and advocate Shailendra Mani Tripathi, who have also challenged the decisions, guidelines and software changes allegedly made by Kumar without the concurrence of his two colleagues.



The PIL, filed by Patna resident Rakesh Kumar Singh, has urged the top court to determine whether Kumar has been individually exercising powers that legally belong to the Election Commission (EC) as a whole, and, if so, to declare those actions unauthorised and take appropriate legal action.

Under fire, the EC said differing views and observations are a normal part of deliberations in any institution and all its orders carry full legal sanction and follow established statutory procedures.



The petition has made the Union Law Ministry, the poll panel, Kumar, Sandhu, Joshi, and Maneesh Garg, a senior official of the poll panel, as parties.



Also read: Delhi: Three women journalists allege sexual harassment during protest, crime branch to probe



Tripathi's plea, filed through advocate Chand Qureshi, has alleged that the CEC's actions violate the statutory requirement of collective decision-making.



The plea also seeks initiation of criminal proceedings against the CEC and other officials for breach of official duty.



"Divested of any statutory or constitutional immunity, the Chief Election Commissioner remains directly accountable under the law – subject to police investigation, evidence gathering, and regular trial proceedings as an ordinary accused," the plea states.



Tripathi has relied on the provisions of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023, particularly Section 18, which provides for decision-making by the EC and says that where there is a difference of opinion, the view of the majority prevails.



One of the main issues the plea raises is the alteration of Form 6, which the people use to register as voters. It alleges that the requirement relating to ancestral details and link with the previous SIR was introduced through the election panel's software without the statutory amendment required under the electoral rules.



According to the petition, the two election commissioners other than Kumar objected to the change and asserted that the prescribed form could not be altered without following the statutory procedure.



"Issue a writ of mandamus or any other appropriate writ, order, or direction declaring all decisions, guidelines, directives, and software modifications initiated, approved, or implemented under CEC Gyanesh Kumar without full commission concurrence or contrary to the majority opinion of the Election Commissioners as unconstitutional, ultra vires, and void ab initio," the plea says.



Concerns over the handling of electoral roll revisions in Goa and West Bengal were also mentioned in the plea, which alleged that the software lacked the feature to restore 97 eligible electors in Goa despite directions for their verification.



In West Bengal, the petitioner claimed that more than 16.10 lakh appeals were filed in the EC's name against voters whose names were restored by judicial officers.



The other two election commissioners and the West Bengal chief electoral officer were not aware of these appeals, nor did they authorise them, the plea says.

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Supreme CourtChief Election CommissionerElection CommissionGyanesh Kumarelectoral rollselectoral reformssoftware modificationsPILSupreme Court of India

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