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Supreme Court to hear on October 5 pleas seeking CEC Gyanesh Kumar's resignation amid SIR row
CJI Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana are scheduled to hear the pleas filed by Rakesh Kumar Singh and advocate Shailendra Mani Tripathi.
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The Supreme Court will hear on Monday, October 5, a batch of pleas seeking the suspension of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, amid a row over the special intensive revision (SIR) exercise being undertaken by the poll body.
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.
Apart from seeking the CEC's suspension, the pleas have also challenged what they have claimed are decisions, guidelines and software changes allegedly made by Kumar without the consent of the two Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, news agency PTI reported.
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The pleas come after a report by The Indian Express which said that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi recorded objections to decisions taken in the commission’s name at least 14 times over 10 months.
The reported disagreements involved changes to Form 6, the centralisation of ERONet controls in Delhi, voter deletion appeals in West Bengal and the failure to add some eligible voters to the electoral rolls in Goa. However, the poll body, in a statement to HT, said the decisions were unanimous and had the approval of both Election Commissioners and the CEC.
Refuting the report, the Election Commission said its three members may have individual views, observations or suggestions during deliberations, but all final decisions of the poll body are taken unanimously.
What do the PILs seek?
The PIL filed by Rakesh Kumar Singh, a resident of Patna, has urged the Supreme Court to determine whether CEC Kumar has been individually exercising powers which legally belong to the poll body as a whole and, if found to be so, declared these decisions as unauthorised and take appropriate legal action, according to the PTI report.
The plea urges the top court to direct that the CEC “shall not exercise the functions of Chief Election Commissioner of India pending final hearing of the present petition”, and that during the period of vacancy of the post, the business of the ECI be transacted by the unanimous decision of the two Election Commissioners.
Meanwhile Tripathi's plea, filed through advocate Chand Qureshi, alleged that the CEC's actions violate the statute of collective decision-making. It sought initiation of criminal proceedings against the CEC and other officials for “breach of duty”, PTI reported.
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Plea raises Form-6 issue
One of the primary issues raised in the plea is the changes made to Form 6, which citizens use to register as voters. The plea alleged that the additional requirements of voters' ancestral details and link to previous SIR was introduced through the poll body's software and not through statutory amendment, as prescribed in electoral rules.
The petition claims that the two Election Commissioners had raised objections to the change and asserted that these could not be made without the statutory procedure, according to PTI.
