Face2News/Chandigarh
The Election Commission of India’s reported filing of about 16 lakh appeals against West Bengal voters cleared by Supreme Court-appointed judicial officers has no clear footing in election law, says KBS Sidhu, retired Special Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab, and a former District Election Officer, Amritsar. He has written to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, seeking a public clarification.
According to published reports, which KBS Sidhu has said he does not vouch for, the Commission appealed against nearly half of the 32.7 lakh voters the judicial officers found eligible during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). Over 12 lakh of these appeals reportedly carry a single filing timestamp of 5 April 2026, two days before the rolls froze for the Assembly election.
KBS Sidhu points out that the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, allow only an enrolled elector of the constituency to object to another’s inclusion, and allow an appeal only by a person who was heard by the registration officer.
The Commission’s machinery, he notes, prepares the roll after due diligence under the law and its own executive instructions, the contentious SIR included; any error is then corrected in due process of law, at an elector’s instance or by the registration officer after notice. “Having prepared the roll, the Commission cannot arrogate to itself the powers of an objector, least of all in the absence of any statutory provision,” he said.
In his letter, he asks the Commission to answer six questions publicly:
1. Under what law, or which Supreme Court order, did the Commission acquire standing to appeal against judge-cleared voters?
2. Who signed the appeals, and was the Additional Chief Electoral Officer authorised in writing?
3. Does each appeal give an individual, reasoned ground, or were the grounds generated in bulk?
4. Were some 12 lakh appeals uploaded on a single day, and who prepared and reviewed them?
5. What explains a near-uniform appeal rate of 40 to 60 per cent across 222 of 294 constituencies?
6. How does the Commission reconcile its own ten-objection cap on individual citizens with appeals filed at a rate of lakhs a day?KBS Sidhu has asked that the answers be placed in the public domain, not sent to him alone. If no public clarification comes within a week, his letter is to be treated as an application under the Right to Information Act, 2005.
KBS Sidhu has consistently argued in national print and electronic media for the primacy of Article 326 of the Constitution in the debate over the SIR. Article 326 guarantees the vote to every citizen aged 18 or above, subject only to a narrow list of disqualifications; the law adds only ordinary residence, which extends even to the homeless. “The franchise is the rule; disqualification is the narrow exception,” he said.
A 1984-batch Punjab-cadre IAS officer, KBS Sidhu has served as District Election Officer, Amritsar, and as an Election Commission observer in three successive Lok Sabha elections.
Chandigarh
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