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 with the 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 Kumar. The petition 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. The plea said that CEC is only the Chairman and Constitution vests in him no individual title to the commission's collective authority. Section 18 of the CEC & EC Act, 2023 requires that in case of disagreement, the majority view should prevail. The petition sought production of the complete original and primary records relating to the matters referred in the news reports, including minutes, agendas, approvals, file notings, work-allocation and delegation orders, IT-access records, server logs, audit trails and database-change histories concerning the functioning of the commission. It even sought the record disclosing decisions materially affecting the electoral roll, the Form-6 that required new voters to map legacy information with the 2002 roll, ERONet/ECINet access, and the authorisation for appeals challenging inclusion in the West Bengal rolls. Singh suggested that if the court chooses to order a probe, the independent commission or SIT be assisted by independent experts in cybersecurity, information technology and electoral administration, to conduct an inquiry into the matters. "If the power constitutionally vested in the Election Commission as a multi-member body can, in fact or in substance, be exercised by one office within it without the participation the Constitution and the 2023 Act require, then decisions that determine who is on the electoral roll, and therefore who may vote, raise a serious constitutional question as to whether such decisions are being taken by the constitutional authority the Constitution created for that purpose," the petition said....