NEW DELHI, October 5 — A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India, headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant alongside Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana, declined to grant an ex-parte interim suspension of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, ruling that constitutional offices cannot be destabilized without hearing all respondents during ongoing electoral preparations.
The apex court issued formal notices to the Union Government, the Election Commission of India (ECI), and the two Election Commissioners—Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi—requiring comprehensive counter-affidavits within seven days. The underlying petitions alleged that critical operational guidelines, including parameters governing the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral registries and Form-6 revisions, were finalized on multiple occasions without mandatory consensus or majority voting among the three-member panel.
The bench reaffirmed that the ECI is a multi-member constitutional body statutorily bound to execute policy determinations through unanimous or majority deliberation. The Chief Justice explicitly rejected contentions that the court had previously authorized modified statutory registration formats, warning that any unilateral administrative alterations lacking collective authority could be subjected to judicial review and declared ultra vires.
Constitutional autonomy of the Election Commission (Article 324), the doctrine of institutional collegiality (T.N. Seshan v. Union of India, 1995), and judicial review standards are central to UPSC GS Paper II (Polity & Constitutional Bodies). Candidates should remember that the Election Commission became a permanent multi-member body on October 1, 1993, with the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners enjoying identical status, tenure safeguards, and equal voting weight.