In a major update, a petition has been filed before the Supreme Court seeking criminal prosecution of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over alleged violations of statutory duties in connection with the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The petition filed by advocate Shailendra Mani Tripathi under Article 32 of the Constitution seeks to declare unconstitutional and void any decisions, guidelines, or software modifications undertaken by Gyanesh Kumar without the concurrence of the other two Election Commissioners.

Additionally, Advocate Tripathi has also sought action against CEC Gyanesh Kumar, Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Manish Garg and the ECI Information Technology Chief Seema Khanna.

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The plea asserted that official documents revealed that between November 2025 and August 2026, two Election Commissioners, namely, Dr Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Dr Vivek Joshi recorded written dissents and objections on at least 14 separate occasions (including four times on a single day) against unilateral, unauthorised, and illegal decisions taken and executed in the name of the Commission, Bar and Bench reported.

Advocate Tripathi alleged that the breach of conduct included the alleged unauthorised modification of Form 6, centralisation of electoral-roll databases, failure to restore eligible voters through the ECINet system and the filing of 16.10 lakh appeals in West Bengal challenging the inclusion of voters purportedly in the name of the ECI.

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SIT To Investigate Deletion Of Names

The petitioner has also sought a judicial inquiry commission or a special investigation team (SIT) into the deletion of 13 crore voters from electoral rolls during the SIR. The petition seeks to conduct a forensic audit of the ECINet and ERONet databases and probe the circumstances in which, 13 crore names were deleted across 30 States and Union Territories during the SIR exercise.  

The petitioner has also sought the investigating team to determine accountability for the unauthorised filing of 1.61 million appeals in West Bengal challenging voter inclusions.