From Our Special Correspondent
New Delhi: Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s tenure is increasingly defined by a pattern of aggressive, contested decisions that have been walked back under sustained pressure. Appointed in February 2025 under the 2023 law that removed the Chief Justice of India from the selection panel and replaced the judge with a Union minister, Kumar has overseen the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and internal administrative changes that Opposition parties, civil groups and, on several occasions, his own colleagues have challenged as partisan or procedurally flawed. With the Supreme Court examining whether decisions were taken unilaterally, and Kerala’s Home Minister ordering a fresh vigilance inquiry into allegations from his 2006 stint as the state’s PWD Secretary, the institutional and personal costs of his continued tenure are mounting.
The most recent public illustration of retreat came this week. Three months after a July 28 work-allocation order prompted Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi to write separately to Cabinet Secretary T.V. Somanathan, the Election Commission issued a fresh order. It reaffirmed a layer of oversight over Director General (IT) Seema Khanna, directing that she route files relating to IT/ICT and Grievances/PGRS through Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Pawan Kumar Sharma. The July 28 order, issued by Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Maneesh Garg while holding temporary administrative charge, had removed then-DEC Sanjay Kumar from those subjects and listed them only against Khanna’s name, effectively positioning her to report directly to the Commission. The Commission has told the Supreme Court that the July 28 order was never implemented following a joint direction by the two Election Commissioners on July 30. The new order, however, formally restores the earlier reporting hierarchy. Critics view the sequence as evidence that a change advanced without full collegial consent could not survive once it became public and was challenged.
This episode forms part of a broader record of internal dissent. An investigation published by The Indian Express on 23 September detailed at least 14 objections recorded on file by Sandhu and Joshi over roughly ten months. The objections concerned SIR-related decisions on the addition and deletion of voters, procedures linked to Form 6, access to voter databases, and other steps taken in the Commission’s name. The two commissioners complained of being kept in the dark on matters that later appeared as Commission orders. Opposition parties and groups, including the Cockroach Janta Party, treated the report as confirmation of long-standing allegations of vote manipulation. Protests followed, and on 31 October the INDIA bloc staged a symbolic “public impeachment” at the residence of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge. The resolution accused Kumar of facilitating large-scale deletions—opposition figures placed the number of names classified as absent, shifted, deceased or duplicate at over 13 crore—of altering voter-registration processes without proper authority, of centralising control through digital systems, and of acting at the behest of the ruling dispensation. Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi described the deletions as rendering the 2024 elections open to challenge, noting that the margin between the winner and the Opposition was far smaller than the scale of the revisions.
The Supreme Court has taken cognisance. On petitions alleging unilateral decision-making by the Chief Election Commissioner, a bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant issued notices to the Commission and the Centre. The Court observed that decisions of the Election Commission must be either unanimous or by majority and stated that any decision found not to be in accordance with law could be annulled. It clarified that it had neither approved nor disapproved subsequent changes to the online Form 6 process in its earlier judgment on the Bihar SIR. The Commission responded with an affidavit asserting that the three SIR scheduling orders—dated 24 June 2025, 27 October 2025 and 14 May 2026—were unanimous decisions of the three-member body, and that the July 28 work-allocation order had never been acted upon. It also denied having amended Form 6 itself, stating that only the Central government can amend the statutory form under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. While the Commission maintains that notes, queries and observations by individual commissioners during file processing do not constitute decisions, the Court’s willingness to examine records and, if necessary, to set aside actions leaves the legal position unsettled.
A parallel legal front has opened in Kerala. Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala has directed the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau to conduct a preliminary inquiry into allegations concerning Kumar’s tenure as PWD Secretary in 2006. The matter relates to road works under the Kerala State Transport Project, including the MC Road package executed by the PATI-BEL consortium, an India-Malaysia joint venture. A Malaysian project engineer, Lee See Been, died by suicide that year; complaints have long claimed that suicide notes referred to difficulties with bill clearance and named the then-PWD Secretary. Fresh complaints, including one from a contractor alleging a demand of ₹2 crore to clear bills worth around ₹17 crore, and earlier representations by Congress leaders, prompted the reopening. An earlier vigilance inquiry that examined multiple complaints between 2007 and 2012 was closed without evidence of corruption sufficient for prosecution. Chennithala has stated that the present inquiry is warranted, that he found prima facie merit in the complaints, and that the office of Chief Election Commissioner does not shield actions taken two decades earlier as a state secretary. The case remains at the preliminary stage, but it adds a formal legal overhang that can only grow more awkward the longer Kumar remains in office.
Taken together, the record shows a pattern of decisions advanced on electoral rolls and internal administration, documented objections from the other two commissioners, public protests, Opposition motions and judicial scrutiny, followed by visible adjustments. The Commission defends the SIR as a legitimate exercise to remove dead, shifted, duplicate and untraceable entries and insists that its orders were collegial. Yet each reversal under external pressure strengthens the perception that steps were taken without full consent and then modified only when resistance became costly. Constitutional bodies derive authority from the appearance of independence and collective decision-making. When that appearance is repeatedly challenged and decisions are walked back, the institution’s standing suffers. For Gyanesh Kumar, continued tenure multiplies the risk of further controversies, adverse court observations and entanglement in the Kerala vigilance proceedings. Stepping down would limit personal legal exposure and allow the Election Commission to restore collegial functioning. Remaining in office is more likely to prolong the controversies than to resolve them.
