FORMER SPECIAL CS SIDHU SEEKS ECI RECORDS UNDER RTI TO TEST COMMISSION’S CLAIM THAT ITS TWO ELECTION COMMISSIONERS MERELY OFFERED “SUGGESTIONS”

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Did the Election Commission’s own Commissioners approve the press note that described their objections as “suggestions”? KBS Sidhu, a retired IAS officer who superannuated as Special Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab, has now asked the Commission to answer that question from its own files.

KBS Sidhu, who had earlier today sent an open letter to the two Election Commissioners, has in an application under the Right to Information Act, 2005, addressed to the Central Public Information Officer of the Election Commission of India (ECI), sought copies of the records behind the Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) decisions from 1 November 2025 to 23 September 2026.

These include:
• the file approving the ECI’s Press Note No. ECI/PN/119/2026 of 23 September, showing whether Election Commissioners Dr Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Dr Vivek Joshi approved it;
• the order approving the change to Form 6, the new-voter form, and any Gazette notification amending the rules to permit it;
• the dates and minutes of meetings of the full Commission, including any recorded dissent;
• the authorisation for some 16 lakh appeals filed in the Commission’s name in West Bengal against voters restored by judicial officers;
• the Goa Chief Electoral Officer’s eight letters of February 2026 seeking a facility to restore eligible voters;
• orders on the distribution of work among the three Commissioners, and on access to the ERONet/ECINet roll database;
• the notes recorded by the two Election Commissioners in April 2026 on communications issued in the Commission’s name without its approval.

The ECI’s press note, issued today after The Indian Express reported that the two Election Commissioners had objected on record at least fourteen times in ten months, described their notes as “suggestions” and said the SIR decisions were unanimous. “Dr Sandhu’s recorded word for the Form 6 change was ‘unauthorised and illegal’,” said KBS Sidhu. “An objection in those terms is not a suggestion. If the decisions were unanimous, the minutes will show it, and the Commission should have no difficulty releasing them.”

KBS Sidhu’s open letter to Dr Sandhu and Dr Joshi, marked to the Chief Election Commissioner, Shri Gyanesh Kumar, recalls the Supreme Court’s 1995 judgment in T.N. Seshan v. Union of India, which held that the Election Commissioners are equal in rank with the Chief Election Commissioner and that the Commission decides by majority.

It urges the two Commissioners to convene a full meeting of the Commission and, where they find a decision unauthorised, illegal or unconstitutional, to review and reverse it by a two-to-one vote.

The letter also rests on Article 326 of the Constitution. Under it, every citizen aged eighteen who is ordinarily resident and not disqualified is entitled to be registered as a voter. “The Constitution says ‘shall be entitled’. It does not say ‘if mapped to a roll of 2003’. No form or software rule can add a fourth condition,” KBS Sidhu said.

Citing the urgency, with Punjab’s final electoral roll due on 12 October and rolls being finalised in several other States, the application asks for early disposal. It seeks the records in electronic form and undertakes to pay any fee for copies on intimation.