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Even as the SIR process threw the lives of Dalits, oppressed and marginalised people across the country into turmoil, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar Gupta and the Modi government remained unmoved. But as soon as The Indian Express reported the dissent of the other two Election Commissioners, who had raised objections to decisions of the Commission on the ground that they were legally untenable, the Election Commission suddenly convened a meeting on September 26.
Within just two hours, it took a series of decisions and immediately made them public. What prevented the Commission from finding these same two hours at any point during the last ten months? The reality is that every decision taken “unanimously” at this meeting reads like an acknowledgement of the serious wrongs committed by the Commission since the SIR process began.
The Commission has now decided that electors flagged for “logical discrepancies” need not be summoned to its offices and made to stand in queues; officials will instead visit their homes and collect the necessary documents.
It has also decided that, henceforth, agendas must be circulated in advance for all Commission meetings and minutes of the proceedings must be shared afterwards. Any changes to the Commission’s IT modules will now require the Commission’s approval. It has further directed that all officials must implement the Commission’s decisions strictly and without deviation.
These decisions are welcome. But are these not the most elementary procedural safeguards expected of any public institution that is accountable to the people?
By announcing that such basic institutional discipline will be followed from now on, is the Commission not effectively acknowledging that these procedures were not being followed by the Chief Election Commissioner until now?
Aren’t Gyanesh Kumar’s unilateral decisions illegal?
Under the 1995 law enacted by Parliament governing the functioning of the Election
Commission, and the amendments made to it in 2023, the three-member Election Commission is required to take its decisions, as far as possible, unanimously and, where unanimity is not possible, by majority.
The Commission’s own decisions of September 26 indirectly make it clear that agendas were not being provided to the other two Election Commissioners. Does this not amount to a violation of the law? Is Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar Gupta not accountable for such a violation? And can decisions taken without the unanimity or majority required by law be considered legally valid?
Seen in this context, the Commission’s September 26 decisions appear aimed primarily at containing the damage to its institutional credibility after allegations emerged that decisions were being taken unilaterally and in compliance with the Modi government’s directions. They contain no apparent mechanism for examining Gyanesh Kumar’s alleged violations or for remedying the serious consequences created by the SIR process.
That is not all.
The Commission has also failed to answer several crucial questions raised by the other two Election Commissioners and subsequently brought into the public domain by The Indian Express.
Unanswered questions by the Commission’s ‘unanimous silence’
For instance, under the law, the final authority to decide whether a person should be included in or removed from the electoral roll rests with the local Electoral Registration Officer (ERO). But, as revealed by the other two Election Commissioners, ECINET, which is centrally controlled, was not even recording some of the decisions taken by these EROs.
Similarly, in West Bengal, 1.4 crore “logical discrepancy” notices were centrally generated without even bringing them to the attention of the local EROs. In Goa, despite the ERO repeatedly directing that 97 electors be included in the rolls – and despite the matter reportedly being brought to the Central Election Commission’s attention seven or eight times – their names were still not included.
These actions raise serious questions of legality. Such practices have already disenfranchised crores of electors. Yet the Commission’s unanimous statement of September 26 accepts no responsibility for what happened. In the Goa case, it merely says that BLOs will visit the homes of the 97 excluded electors and get the necessary forms filled. But it offers no comparable remedy for those affected in West Bengal.
Second, consider those excluded in West Bengal on the ground of “logical discrepancies". Tribunals have heard challenges to decisions in 38 lakh cases after lower-level adjudicatory authorities scrutinised the documents. Of these, 22 lakh appeals were filed by affected electors who had been excluded from the rolls.
But what about the remaining 16 lakh cases?
These were cases filed by the Election Commission itself against electors whose claims had been accepted at the lower-level proceedings and whose names had consequently been included in the electoral rolls!
And there is another crucial question: How is it that nearly 90% of the cases filed by the Commission were against Muslims?
Most importantly, The Indian Express has reported that neither the West Bengal CEO nor the other two Election Commissioners at the Centre were aware that the Commission itself had initiated these cases before the tribunals.
Yet the Commission’s September 26 statement does not explain whatsoever on this issue. Nor does it subject these actions to any review. If that is so, what do the people actually gain from the Commission’s newly proclaimed “unanimous” decisions?
The more fundamental question is this: Do the unanimous decisions of the three Election Commissioners actually protect people from the consequences of the SIR exercise, or are the decisions themselves riddled with contradictions?
Let us examine two of the Commission’s most important decisions:
What remedy for states where SIR is over?
In an attempt to address the differential treatment that the Commission had been extending to VIPs and ordinary electors in cases involving “logical discrepancy” notices, the Commission has now decided that BLOs should visit the homes of electors who have received such notices and collect the required documents from them.
This is a welcome decision. But several fundamental questions remain.
a) The problem was never merely the distance between an elector’s home and the government office, or the time and expense involved in making that journey. The much deeper problem is that crores of Dalits, oppressed and marginalised people in this country simply do not possess the documents made mandatory under SIR. The Commission’s new “unanimous decisions” offer no remedy whatsoever for this fundamental problem.
b) What about electors in West Bengal and other states who have already lost their voting rights because they were not given such an opportunity within the prescribed deadline? Would extending this facility only now not amount to unequal treatment of those electors? If this discrimination is genuinely to be remedied, should not the final electoral rolls in those states be kept in abeyance and affected electors be given the same opportunity to secure their voting rights?
And should elections already conducted on the basis of such a discriminatory SIR process not also be annulled?
c) The September 26 statement similarly says that special assistance campaigns should be conducted in areas inhabited by the poor, homeless people and workers. But without extending the duration of the process, how can people in Karnataka and the other thirteen states currently undergoing the exercise actually benefit from this decision?
The Form 6 trap
One of the most important questions raised by the other two Election Commissioners
concerns Form 6, the prescribed form for enrolment of new electors. Under Sections 22 and 23 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, the relevant requirements concern eligibility for registration, including citizenship, age and ordinary residence.
Under the SIR process, however, not only electors excluded from the existing rolls but even new applicants seeking enrolment have been required to submit, along with Form 6, a separate declaration and one of the 11 documents prescribed under SIR.
New applicants have also been required to establish that their parents were included in the electoral roll prepared during the previous SIR, where applicable. Applications not accompanied by the prescribed supporting documents were not being processed through ECINET.
This raises a fundamental question of legality.
Although the Election Commission is an autonomous constitutional body, its rule-making and electoral procedures operate within the framework of laws enacted by Parliament under Article 327 of the Constitution. Neither the Representation of the People Act, 1950 nor the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 prescribed these SIR-specific requirements for filing Form 6. Nor was the law amended to incorporate these additional conditions.
The contention, therefore, is that imposing such additional SIR-driven requirements through administrative directions, without corresponding statutory amendments, is legally untenable. But on September 26, the Commission unanimously offered a different justification.
According to the Commission, the requirement under the SIR process to submit a declaration and supporting documents along with Form 6 cannot be considered unlawful because the Supreme Court, in its judgement of May 27, 2026, upheld these requirements.
That is the Commission’s defence.
Did the SC really approve changes to Form 6?
This is half true and half false.
Why can’t the EC say that the Supreme Court approved the changes?
The Election Commission introduced the above-mentioned SIR-related changes to Form 6 in July 2026. The Supreme Court delivered its judgement in May. It is therefore incorrect to interpret the judgement as the Supreme Court approving amendments that in reality were introduced only later.
At the same time, in paragraphs 152–153 of that judgement, the Supreme Court made it clear that any modifications to Form 6 must bear a rational nexus to the purpose for which SIR is being undertaken. In other words, such modifications can be justified only insofar as they contribute to ensuring the accuracy and integrity of the electoral rolls.
The Election Commission, however, has so far provided no such rational justification for these particular changes. Therefore, the Commission’s claim that the Form 6 changes already carry the Supreme Court’s approval is not entirely correct.
But the Supreme Court did not say that the Election Commission had no authority to make such modifications either.
In paragraphs 152–161 of its judgement, the Court accepted the Commission’s justification for the documents, modifications and procedures adopted for implementing the SIR exercise in Bihar. It upheld the Commission’s authority to structure the SIR exercise and sustained the measures adopted in Bihar.
The new issue, however, is different: the allegation now is that the decision to modify Form 6 was taken unilaterally by the Commission, in violation of the statutory decision-making process.
Has the Commission’s new order made SIR unnecessary?
There are, however, elements in the Election Commission’s new unanimous order of September 26 that indirectly renders the very logic of SIR questionable, if not self-contradictory. Neither the opposition parties nor the media appear to have paid sufficient attention to this aspect.
On Form 6, the September 26 order states:
“The declaration attached to Form 6 for SIR has been upheld by the Hon’ble Supreme Court. For non-SIR period, the Forms applicable as per Rules (the Registration of Electors Rules 1960) will be used.”
It further states:
“SIR has already been completed in 20 States/UTs including Bihar and West Bengal. Any person whose name has got left out during SIR or thereafter, and any person including young/first-time voter, may apply to the concerned ERO for inclusion of their names in the electoral rolls under the process of continuous updation. CEOs have been directed to facilitate the same. The CEOs, DEOs, EROs will immediately launch a special drive for enrolment of these electors.”
This has three important implications:
1) The additional documents and mapping requirements imposed along with Form 6 under SIR apply only during the SIR period.
2) During the non-SIR period – that is, after the SIR exercise ends – the ordinary requirements under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 once again apply.
3) Even in the 20 States and Union Territories where SIR has already been completed, people whose names were excluded from the final SIR rolls, as well as new electors, can seek enrolment again through the ordinary “process of continuous updation”.
What is the “process of continuous updation”?
According to the Election Commission’s Manual on Electoral Rolls, 2023, continuous updation is the regular statutory process through which applications for inclusion, deletion, correction and related changes in electoral rolls are dealt with using Forms 6, 7, and 8 under the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.
The documents required under this process are not the special SIR documents.
Under the ordinary enrolment framework, an applicant makes the prescribed declaration and provides the applicable proof of age and ordinary residence. Documents ordinarily available to people, including Aadhaar and other prescribed or acceptable documents relating to age and residence, can be used in accordance with the applicable rules and Form 6 requirements.
And such enrolment can take place during the non-SIR period.
As already noted, the Commission’s September 26 decision itself says that during the non-SIR period, the forms prescribed under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 will apply.
This produces an extraordinary situation.
A person excluded from the electoral roll during SIR can, after SIR ends, seek to return to the electoral roll through the ordinary continuous-updation process without being subjected to the same SIR-specific documentary regime.
If that is so, what purpose does SIR serve?
Does the Commission’s own unanimous order not expose a fundamental contradiction at the heart of the entire SIR exercise? If electors who fail to satisfy the special SIR requirements can subsequently seek enrolment through the ordinary statutory process, why subject them to the more onerous SIR process in the first place?
And that leads to an even more serious question:
Was SIR introduced in selected states, with its heavier documentary requirements, without adequately considering these contradictions and its disparate impact on particular communities? And what happens now to the 14 crore electors who have already been excluded?
Ten People’s Demands
Even in the wake of the Election Commission’s new order, a powerful movement must be built around these ten people’s demands to defend the Indian Republic from the Modi establishment.
1) SIR must be scrapped immediately.
2) CEC Gyanesh Kumar, accused of acting as an agent of the Modi government, must resign.
3) The Supreme Court must invoke Article 142 of the Constitution and initiate proceedings against CEC Gyanesh Kumar over allegations of betrayal of the constitutional order.
4) All decisions and processes undertaken by the Election Commission during Gyanesh Kumar’s tenure must be subjected to public scrutiny.
5) All elections conducted under the leadership of Gyanesh Kumar must be annulled.
6) The 2023 law governing the appointment of Election Commissioners, which gives the Union government a decisive role in their appointment and provides legal protection for acts performed in official capacity, must be repealed.
7) The Election Commission and the electoral process must be democratised.
8) The Sangh Parivar and the BJP, which continue to defend the Election Commission and the Modi government despite these alleged anti-people actions, must face a nationwide political boycott.
9) Authoritarian and opportunistic opposition parties must unanimously boycott elections conducted based on SIR and launch a complete non-cooperation movement against the Modi–RSS government.
10) For these demands to be realised, a massive nationwide people’s movement of the deprived and disenfranchised must be built.
Shivasundar is an activist and freelance journalist. Views expressed here are the author’s own.
