New Delhi, Sept. 30 -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear next week a petition seeking the suspension of chief election commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar on the grounds that he unilaterally took several decisions, despite these being opposed by the two other election commissioners. A bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana agreed for listing the matter next week on a mentioning by senior advocate Vikas Singh. Terming this as a "serious" issue, the petition filed as a public interest litigation (PIL) also sought a direction from the court to call for the complete records of the decisions taken during the period from October last year to verify the allegations. It further stated that if the allegations are found true, an independent commission headed by a former Supreme Court judge or a special investigation team (SIT) be set up for a thorough probe for fixing responsibility. The senior counsel said, "The decisions of the Election Commission of India have to be unanimous or by majority. But the way ECI has functioned raises doubts. If ECI has not taken a unanimous decision, it is a serious issue." The plea is based on an investigation by the Indian Express, which said election commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi recorded at least 14 objections between October last year and this August over the functioning of ECI, including several policy measures. The report also claimed that local election officers tasked with adding and deleting names from the electoral rolls were shut out from the database on account of a new IT protocol/system, and that illegal changes were made to Form 6 (for new voters), likely at the cost of inconveniencing first time voters. The Commission has claimed that the decisions were all unanimous, and that the letters written by the two election commissioners to the cabinet secretary concerned the administrative duties of an officer seconded to the poll body and not any policy matter. The Commission has also claimed that no changes were made to Form 6 itself, and that the additional information sought was through an addendum. And people familiar with the matter told HT that local officers enjoy the same access to the database they always have, and that the instance mentioned in the report concerned a situation where a local officer had ignored a deadline. Some of the issues highlighted by the report have to do withthe Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, an exercise that has become controversial, with people scrambling to get their names included in the rolls. To be sure, the people cited above claimed that the exercise was not aimed at disenfranchising anyone. Opposition parties have threatened to impeach CEC Kumar. The petition before the apex court, filed by social activist Rakesh Kumar Singh sought preservation of all records, files, notings, etc and a direction that Gyanesh Kumar "shall not exercise the functions of CEC of India, pending final hearing of the present petition". It further required that the business of ECI be transacted by the unanimous decision of the two election commissioners. The petition even called to question the authority under which CEC acted unilaterally as Article 324 of Constitutions that governs functioning of ECI envisages the collective decision-making power of the commission, meant to be a multi-member collegial body....