Election Commission of India under Scrutiny: SIR, Electoral Rolls and Questions over Decision Making

KAKALI DAS

In a political contest, political parties and candidates are expected to take sides. The Election Commission of India, however, has a different responsibility. It is the constitutional authority entrusted with supervising elections and the preparation of electoral rolls. This is why questions about the functioning of the Election Commission are important for every voter, regardless of political affiliation.

Journalist Ritika Chopra with The Indian Express

The Election Commission is currently facing renewed scrutiny following an investigation published by The Indian Express in September 2026. The report said that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally raised objections at least 14 times over a period of 10 months regarding decisions and procedures connected with electoral rolls and the Special Intensive Revision, or SIR. According to the investigation, their concerns included the registration of new voters, deletion of names, the functioning of the electoral database and the increasing centralisation of the system.

The Election Commission has rejected the suggestion that these disagreements mean that decisions were taken outside the Commission’s legal framework. In its response to the report, the Commission said that differing views are part of internal deliberation and maintained that decisions taken during the period were unanimous. The Commission did not dispute the existence of the 14 notes referred to in the investigation.

The controversy therefore raises a larger question. How is a three member Election Commission expected to function when its members disagree, and what happens when two members formally record concerns about decisions taken by the institution?

INDIA: Thirteen Crore Names and a Democracy in Question

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To understand the present controversy, it is first necessary to understand what the Election Commission is and how it is structured.

The Election Commission of India is a constitutional body established under Article 324 of the Constitution. Article 324 gives the Commission superintendence, direction and control over the preparation of electoral rolls and the conduct of elections to Parliament, state legislatures and the offices of the President and Vice President.

The Constitution allows the Election Commission to be either a single member or a multi member body. Since October 1993, it has functioned as a three member Commission consisting of the Chief Election Commissioner and two other Election Commissioners.

At present, the Commission consists of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi.This distinction is important because the Chief Election Commissioner is not a separate authority standing above the Election Commission. The Constitution provides that when the Commission is a multi member body, the Chief Election Commissioner acts as its Chairman.

This issue was examined in detail by the Supreme Court in the 1995 judgment in T.N. Seshan, Chief Election Commissioner of India v. Union of India. The case arose after then Chief Election Commissioner T.N. Seshan challenged the expansion of the Commission into a multi member body.

The Supreme Court rejected the argument that the Chief Election Commissioner had overriding authority over the other Election Commissioners. It held that the Election Commission is the institution entrusted with constitutional responsibilities and that the other Election Commissioners are members of that institution, not merely advisers to the Chief Election Commissioner. The Court also held that the CEC’s position as Chairman did not give him the final word on every matter.

The present legal framework also provides for collective decision making. Section 18 of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023 states that the Commission should, as far as possible, conduct its business unanimously. Where the Chief Election Commissioner and the other Election Commissioners differ on a matter, the matter is to be decided according to the opinion of the majority.

This means that disagreement within the Commission is not, by itself, evidence of an unlawful process. The law itself recognises that disagreements can occur. The important question is whether the disagreement is dealt with through the procedure prescribed by law.

This brings us to the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, or SIR.An electoral roll is simply the official list of registered voters in a constituency. Maintaining an accurate electoral roll is essential because people who are eligible to vote need to be included, while names that no longer belong on the roll because of death, migration, duplication or other legally recognised reasons may have to be removed.

Electoral rolls therefore cannot remain unchanged. New citizens reach the age of 18 and become eligible to register. People die or move from one constituency to another. Some names may appear more than once. Some records may contain errors. The electoral roll has to be updated regularly to reflect these changes.

SIR is one such exercise for revising electoral rolls. The current nationwide controversy began after the SIR was initiated in Bihar in June 2025 and subsequently extended to other states and Union Territories. According to The Indian Express, more than 13 crore names had been left out of draft rolls across 30 states and Union Territories during the exercise.

It is important to note that being left out of a draft roll does not necessarily mean that every one of those people was permanently deleted from the final electoral roll. The distinction between draft exclusions and final deletions is important when discussing the scale of the exercise.The process has nevertheless generated significant concern because an electoral roll determines who is able to participate in an election.

One of the issues highlighted by the Indian Express investigation concerns Form 6. This is the form used by a person to apply for inclusion of their name in the electoral roll.

According to the investigation, Form 6 was changed in July 2026 on the ECINet portal. The revised form asked a new voter whether their own name, or the name of a parent or grandparent, appeared in the electoral roll during the previous SIR. The report said that the applicant had to answer the question before proceeding with the application, even though the relevant section itself was not marked mandatory.

The report further said that Vivek Joshi objected to the change and argued that such an addition required a change in the relevant rules. Sukhbir Singh Sandhu also recorded an objection and described the change as unauthorised and illegal, according to documents reviewed by The Indian Express. The report said that the objections were not accepted and the question remained on the form. The significance of this issue is not simply the wording of a form. It concerns the conditions under which a first time voter can enter the electoral system.

The second major concern relates to the centralisation of the electoral database.The Election Commission has been developing ECINet as a technology platform for election related work. The increasing use of a centralised digital system can make the management of millions of voter records more efficient. At the same time, it raises questions about who has access to the database, who can make changes and how those changes are recorded and monitored.

According to The Indian Express, Sandhu and Joshi raised concerns about the gradual centralisation of the electoral roll database and the effect this could have on the powers of Electoral Registration Officers, or EROs, who have statutory responsibilities at the constituency level. Joshi reportedly proposed an audit to establish who had access to the relevant software and who possessed the credentials required to make changes to voter records.

The issue becomes more significant when viewed against examples cited in the investigation.In Goa, the report examined the case of 97 voters who were reportedly found by local election officials to be eligible for inclusion in the final electoral roll. According to the investigation, the software did not provide the Electoral Registration Officers with the required option to reverse the earlier decision and restore those names. Requests were reportedly made to make such an option available, but the final roll was published without the names being restored.

This example illustrates why software architecture can become an electoral issue. A digital system is not merely a technical tool if its design determines what an election officer can or cannot do.

Another issue concerns West Bengal.According to information submitted by the Election Commission to the Supreme Court, more than 38 lakh appeals were pending in connection with the SIR process. Of these, around 22.21 lakh were filed by voters seeking restoration of their names, while around 16.10 lakh appeals sought deletion of names of voters who had been included. The Election Commission did not identify who had filed the latter group of appeals.

Sandhu reportedly questioned who had authorised those appeals and who had actually filed them on behalf of the Election Commission. According to the investigation, he recorded that neither he nor Joshi, nor the Chief Electoral Officer of West Bengal, had been informed about the basis or process through which those appeals were filed.

This does not by itself establish that the appeals were unlawful. It does, however, raise questions about institutional accountability and the chain of authority through which such actions are taken.The larger issue is therefore not simply whether the three Election Commissioners disagree. Institutions can contain disagreement. In fact, disagreement can be an ordinary part of institutional decision making.

The more important question is whether all members of a constitutional body are given the opportunity to participate meaningfully in decisions for which the institution as a whole is responsible.This distinction is particularly important because Section 18 of the 2023 Act does not require every decision to be unanimous. It says that business should, as far as possible, be transacted unanimously, but where the members differ, the majority view decides the matter.Therefore, the existence of an objection does not automatically invalidate a decision. If one member disagrees and the matter is properly considered and decided by the majority, the law expressly provides for such a situation.

At the same time, if a member claims that they were not informed about a decision, that their concerns were not considered or that a decision was implemented without following the prescribed procedure, those are separate questions. Whether any particular decision was legally valid would ultimately depend on the facts, the applicable law and, where challenged, judicial examination.

The Election Commission’s response to the Indian Express investigation has maintained that differing views are part of the decision making process and that the decisions of the Commission during the relevant period were unanimous. The Commission has therefore disputed the interpretation that the internal objections demonstrate that decisions were taken without proper institutional approval.

The two Election Commissioners, according to the investigation, have presented a different account in their written objections.That difference in accounts is precisely why the controversy matters. The issue is no longer simply a political argument between parties outside the Election Commission. It involves competing accounts of how a constitutional institution itself conducted its internal processes.

The controversy also has a wider judicial dimension.The Supreme Court has already been examining different aspects of the SIR process. In West Bengal, for example, the Court directed that certain disputes relating to voters flagged for discrepancies be dealt with through judicial officers and later appellate tribunals. The Election Commission has also reported large numbers of appeals from voters seeking restoration of their names.

The Supreme Court’s involvement does not mean that the entire SIR exercise has automatically become invalid. Nor does an investigative report automatically invalidate electoral rolls or decisions taken by the Commission. Those are legal questions that have to be determined through the relevant constitutional and statutory processes.

What the controversy does demonstrate is the importance of transparency when electoral rolls are being revised on such a large scale.For a voter, the electoral roll may appear to be a simple document containing names. In reality, it is one of the foundations of the electoral process. Before a person can vote, the system must first recognise that person as an eligible elector. If an eligible voter is left out, that person may have to go through an appeal or correction process. If an ineligible name remains on the roll, the electoral system has a different problem.The challenge is therefore to maintain both accuracy and accessibility.

The SIR debate has also brought renewed attention to the institutional design of the Election Commission. The three member structure exists precisely because the Commission is a collective constitutional body. The Supreme Court’s 1995 judgment in the T.N. Seshan case remains particularly relevant because it rejected the idea that the Chief Election Commissioner can simply override the other Election Commissioners by virtue of being the Chairman. The Court emphasised that the constitutional responsibility belongs to the Commission as an institution.

The present controversy should therefore be understood carefully. It is not accurate to say that every disagreement within the Election Commission makes a decision illegal. It is equally important not to dismiss every formal objection as meaningless simply because disagreement is part of institutional deliberation.

The real questions concern procedure, transparency, authority and accountability.Were the members properly informed?Were objections properly considered?Who had authority to make specific changes?Who had access to the electoral database? Were decisions taken according to the applicable law?And where disagreements existed, was the statutory majority process followed?These questions can be answered through documents, official records, parliamentary scrutiny and judicial proceedings. They should not be settled merely through political claims from either side.

There is also a larger lesson from the T.N. Seshan judgment. The Supreme Court made clear that the individual occupying the office of Chief Election Commissioner should not be confused with the institution of the Election Commission. The institution is larger than any one office holder.That principle remains important because public confidence in elections depends not only on the final result but also on confidence in the process that produces the electoral roll and conducts the election.

The present dispute therefore goes beyond the question of whether the SIR exercise should continue or whether particular names should be added or removed. It raises a more fundamental institutional question about how a constitutional body responsible for elections records disagreement, makes decisions and explains those decisions to the public.The political parties will naturally interpret the controversy according to their interests. That is part of democratic politics. But the Election Commission has a different role. Its responsibility is to administer the electoral process within the constitutional and legal framework.

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For citizens, the most important point is to understand the difference between an allegation, an internal objection, an official response and a legal finding. The Indian Express investigation has brought a set of internal objections into public view. The Election Commission has responded that the objections were part of deliberation and that decisions were unanimous. The courts may ultimately be required to determine the legal consequences of particular actions. Until those questions are settled, one conclusion is clear: the controversy has placed the functioning of the Election Commission itself under unusually close public scrutiny.

And perhaps that is the most important part of the discussion. Elections do not begin on polling day. They begin much earlier, with the preparation of the electoral roll, the registration of eligible voters, the correction of errors and the removal of names where the law requires it.For democracy to function, citizens need confidence that this process is being carried out according to clear rules and that the institution responsible for it follows those rules consistently.

The debate around SIR is therefore not only about numbers on a voter list. It is also about procedure, institutional accountability and the safeguards that stand between a citizen and the loss of their right to participate in an election.

As the controversy moves through public debate and judicial scrutiny, the central questions will have to be answered with documents and law rather than assumption. The credibility of an electoral institution depends not only on the decisions it makes, but also on whether citizens can understand how those decisions were made.

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