Srinagar, Sept. 25 -- New Delhi- The controversy over the Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls escalated sharply on Friday, with a petition in the Supreme Court seeking criminal prosecution of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and an independent probe into the alleged deletion of around 13 crore names from electoral rolls.

The plea, filed by advocate Shailendra Mani Tripathi through advocate Chand Qureshi, challenges decisions, guidelines and software changes allegedly undertaken by Kumar without the concurrence of the other two Election Commissioners. It seeks that such decisions be declared unconstitutional and void, along with restoration of the original statutory Form 6.

The petitioner ha...