The Supreme Court will hear on Monday, October 5 petitions seeking the prosecution of CEC Gyanesh Kumar, an SIT inquiry into electoral roll deletions during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) and the reversal of 14 SIR-related decisions allegedly taken without the concurrence of the other two Election Commissioners.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on Monday, October 5, petitions challenging decisions that were allegedly taken by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls without the concurrence of the other two Election Commissioners [Rakesh Kumar Singh v. Union of India; Shailendra Mani Tripathi v. Union of India].
The matter is listed before a Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana. The petitions are W.P.(C) No. 1246/2026, filed by Rakesh Kumar Singh, and W.P.(Crl.) No. 401/2026, filed by advocate Shailendra Mani Tripathi. On September 29, the same Bench had agreed to hear Singh’s petition the following week.
What the petitioners seek
The petitioners seek the reversal of 14 SIR-related decisions, the prosecution of Gyanesh Kumar and an inquiry by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) into deletions from the electoral rolls during the SIR exercise.
Among the other reliefs sought in the batch are a declaration that decisions taken in the Election Commission’s name without the concurrence of the full Commission, or contrary to its majority view, are unconstitutional and void; suspension of Gyanesh Kumar from functioning as CEC; the quashing of changes to Form 6 that require ancestry or ‘last-SIR’ declarations; and an independent judicial inquiry or an SIT headed by a retired Supreme Court judge.
The allegation of unilateral decisions
According to the petitions, Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi recorded at least 14 objections between October 2025 and August 2026 to steps allegedly taken in the Commission’s name without their approval. The petitioners contend that the decisions affected the SIR exercise and the electoral roll systems.
The Election Commission has said, in a press note approved by the full Commission, that its decisions on the SIR and the Form 6 declaration were taken unanimously and have been upheld by the Supreme Court.
Why the hearing matters
The petitions raise the question whether decisions taken in the Election Commission’s name can stand without the concurrence of the other Election Commissioners, and they pair that question with demands for a criminal prosecution and an SIT inquiry into the SIR deletions. The allegations are untested, and the Court has made no finding on them. The hearing on October 5 will show how the Bench proposes to proceed on the batch.
Case Title: Rakesh Kumar Singh v. Union of India [W.P.(C) No. 1246/2026] and Shailendra Mani Tripathi v. Union of India [W.P.(Crl.) No. 401/2026]
Bench: Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana, Supreme Court of India
Date of Hearing: October 5, 2026