Can Election Commission untie knots of its own making? That’s the question

Why in the News

The Election Commission of India (ECI) is meant to decide as one collective body, but two of its own Election Commissioners (ECs) have recorded that key decisions on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) were taken without them. Each explanation the ECI has offered since has deepened this self-made credibility crisis.

What is the dispute inside the Election Commission?

1. Special Intensive Revision: The SIR rebuilds the voter list through house-to-house checks, like recounting a club’s members instead of updating its register. Critics call it unfair, exclusionary and arbitrary.
2. Objections from within: The two ECs wrote 14 letters against decisions issued in its name, without necessarily opposing the SIR. They objected to:
   • changes to Form 6, which one EC’s August 14 letter called “illegal and unauthorised”;
   • denying Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), who maintain each constituency’s roll, access to ECINet, the ECI’s digital platform;
   • 16 lakh appeals filed without their knowledge against names on West Bengal’s revised, “purified” roll.
3. Collective functioning lapsed: The Commission held no meetings for four months and circulated no agenda or minutes for a year.
4. The takeaway: When members of a collective body say they were bypassed, every decision issued in its name is open to challenge.

What is Form 6?

1. New elector application: Form 6 is the application a first-time voter, or one who has moved constituency, files to join the electoral roll. The Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 prescribe it.
2. Why changes matter: Altering it changes what every new voter must declare or prove.

How have the ECI’s explanations deepened the crisis?

1. Claim of unanimity: On September 23, the ECI said all its decisions were unanimous.
2. Two versions of Form 6: On September 26, it admitted using separate SIR and non-SIR versions of the form. It claimed the Supreme Court had “upheld” the changes.
3. Declaration withdrawn: The ECI then withdrew the declaration it had attached to Form 6.
4. Widening scrutiny: High courts have questioned ECI decisions, and the Supreme Court has admitted petitions seeking the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC)‘s suspension.
5. Court’s denial: Hearing those petitions on October 5, the Chief Justice of India (CJI) reportedly observed, “No modified Form 6 has been approved by us.”

Did the Supreme Court’s judgment authorise the Form 6 changes?

1. Paragraph 152: Supporters cite this paragraph of the Court’s SIR judgment. It says Form 6 suits routine revision under Section 21(2) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, not literally the SIR.
2. Residual authority: The ECI therefore keeps a “residual authority”, a power to fill legal gaps, “to formulate” a framework for SIR documents. Recognising a power is not approving its use.
3. Guardrails: That authority is “not unbounded”. Any departure from the statutory scheme needs a “rational nexus”, a logical link, to accurate and clean rolls.
4. Unanswered question: No one has explained why an EC called the changes illegal nearly three months after the May 27 judgment, if it legitimised them.

Challenges

1. Unverifiable unanimity: ECI minutes are not public, so claims of unanimity cannot be tested.
2. Forms changed outside the Rules: Only the Union government can amend the 1960 Rules, so ECI edits to Form 6 lack legal footing.
3. Unequal protection for ECs: An EC can be removed on the CEC’s recommendation, which deters dissent.
4. Removal is politically fraught: Removing the CEC needs a special majority in both Houses, so it rarely checks misconduct.

Way Forward

1. Publish the SIR minutes: The ECI should release the minutes of the meeting that approved the SIR.
2. Recorded positions: Every decision should record each member’s position, including dissents.
3. Equal removal safeguard: Parliament should amend Article 324(5) to give ECs the CEC’s protection, as the Goswami Committee suggested.
4. Forms through the Rules: The Ministry of Law and Justice should notify form changes by amending the 1960 Rules.

Conclusion

The ECI’s crisis turns less on the SIR itself than on whether a body built to decide collectively can show that its members actually did so. Until the Commission opens its record, each hearing will widen the gap between its claims and its credibility.

About the Election Commission of India

1. Constitutional basis: Article 324 vests the superintendence, direction and control of electoral rolls and elections in the ECI.
2. Equal members: The ECI has three members. In T.N. Seshan v. Union of India (1995), the Supreme Court held them equal, with the CEC first among equals.
3. Decision rule: Section 18 of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023 requires unanimity as far as possible, and the majority view otherwise.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2026, GS2, 10 marks] Is the right to vote a fundamental right? Discuss the position of the Election Commission of India while undertaking the revision of electoral rolls. Can it also examine the question of citizenship of voters?”