From Our Correspondent
New Delhi: A Supreme Court advocate on Thursday has sought the statutory consent of Attorney General, R. Venkataramani, to initiate criminal contempt proceedings against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, alleging wilful defiance of binding Supreme Court judgments on the functioning of the Election Commission of India.
Advocate Brajesh Singh, in a letter dated September 24, invoked Section 15(1)(b) read with Section 2(c) of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, and Rule 3 of the Rules to Regulate Proceedings for Contempt of the Supreme Court, 1975. Under the statute, a private person cannot move the Supreme Court for criminal contempt without the written consent of the Attorney General or the Solicitor General. The letter is therefore a request for permission, not a pending contempt case.
The move follows an investigative report published on September 23 by The Indian Express, which described what it called a “complete breakdown of multi-member consensus” and “deep structural subversions” inside the three-member Commission. According to the report and the advocate’s letter, Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi formally recorded written objections on at least 14 occasions over the preceding ten months.
The objections, the letter states, covered major policy steps taken without their knowledge or the approval of the full Commission. These included sweeping alterations to voter registration software, changes to Form 6, and the deletion and restoration of names under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The Commissioners described several of these actions as “unauthorised” and “illegal.”
Singh argued that such conduct reduces a constitutionally mandated multi-member body into what he called a “one-man autocracy.” He submitted that the CEC is only primus inter pares—first among equals—and does not possess absolute authority. The letter relies principally on the Supreme Court’s judgment in T.N. Seshan v. Union of India, which held that the CEC cannot be projected as “mightier than the institution” and that decisions of a multi-member Election Commission are decisions of the Commission, not of its Chairman alone. It also cites Anoop Baranwal v. Union of India (2023), which emphasised the necessity of an independent and impartial Commission for free and fair elections.
“Bypassing fellow Commissioners to secretly issue public dictates under the banner of ‘full Commission’ constitutes willful defiance of the law declared by the Supreme Court under Article 141,” the advocate said.
Singh further contended that undermining the majesty of a constitutional body and compromising the integrity of the centralised electoral database interfere with ongoing democratic processes and judicial scrutiny of electoral transparency. He described the alleged actions as ex facie criminal contempt because they scandalise and lower the authority of a constitutional institution whose independence forms part of the basic structure of the Constitution.
No contempt petition has been filed in court. The Attorney General’s decision on consent will determine whether proceedings can be instituted. The Election Commission has previously denied any internal rift. The request comes against the backdrop of continued political and legal controversy over the Commission’s functioning, the SIR exercise, and related challenges before the Supreme Court.
