Election Commission Calls Every Decision ‘Unanimous’; Former CECs Invoke Section 18 as Annual Roll Revision Stalls

The news

New Delhi, September 23. This magazine carded The Indian Express investigation on September 23: Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi objected on record at least 14 times between October 2025 and August 2026 to decisions taken in the Commission’s name without their knowledge. New today are the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) answer, the law it must satisfy, and the first measurable costs. The ECI first said, in a source-based clarification, that all decisions, “including SIR” (the Special Intensive Revision, a fresh re-enumeration of voters), were “unanimous and with the approval of both the Election Commissioners and the Chief Election Commissioner”, The Hindu reports. A press note signed by Deputy Director P Pawan then called differing views “a normal part of deliberation” and said all orders “carry full legal sanctions” under the 2023 Act. It did not say, The Indian Express notes, who approved the change to Form 6 (the application for new voters), who authorised appeals in the ECI’s name against restored voters in West Bengal, why an audit of ECINet (the Commission’s digital roll platform) went unanswered, or why the full Commission did not meet between May and August. The governing law is Section 18 of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023: business is transacted unanimously as far as possible, and where members differ, the majority decides. Former CEC S Y Quraishi argues that two of three members are a majority, so decisions taken without them are “prima facie ultra vires” — beyond legal power; he cites 38.31 lakh West Bengal appeals, 16.10 lakh reportedly filed by the ECI seeking deletions. The Economic Times reports that the annual Special Summary Revision, held since 1958 to enrol those turning 18, has not resumed after the 2024 cycle, and confidential reports of nearly 50 transferred officials are stuck because the three could not sign together. In Goa, 97 voters cleared by Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) stayed off the roll because ECINet had no “rollback”, though Deputy Election Commissioner Sanjay Kumar wrote that the “IT system cannot block necessary action”; they also lose access to the Goa Mediclaim Scheme. The Opposition demands the CEC’s removal, a Supreme Court-monitored probe and a halt to the SIR; the BJP calls it a “smear campaign”. Syllabus: GS2, constitutional bodies and the Representation of the People Acts.

Static syllabus linkage

1. Article 324 entrusts elections to a Commission, and the Commission has been multi-member since 1993. Article 324(1) vests the superintendence, direction and control of the preparation of electoral rolls and the conduct of elections to Parliament, the State legislatures and the offices of President and Vice-President in the Election Commission. Article 324(2) says the Commission shall consist of the Chief Election Commissioner and such number of other Election Commissioners as the President may fix, appointed subject to any law made by Parliament. Two Election Commissioners appointed in October 1989 lost office when their posts were abolished in January 1990, and the three-member form has run continuously since October 1993. Under Article 324(5), the CEC can be removed only in the manner and on the grounds of a Supreme Court judge, while the other Election Commissioners can be removed only on the CEC’s recommendation — a protection of tenure, not a hierarchy of votes.
2. Section 18 makes unanimity the norm and the majority the rule of decision. Section 18 of the 2023 Act, which replaced the Election Commission (Conditions of Service of Election Commissioners and Transaction of Business) Act, 1991, allows the Commission to regulate its procedure and allocate business among its members only by unanimous decision, requires all other business to be transacted unanimously as far as possible, and provides that where the CEC and the Election Commissioners differ, the opinion of the majority prevails. The 1991 law carried the same rule after its 1993 amendment. In T N Seshan v Union of India (1995), a Constitution Bench upheld this design and rejected the claim that the CEC stands above his colleagues in decision-making, warning, in a line Quraishi quotes today, that ‘it would be wrong to project the individual and eclipse the Election Commission’. The CEC presides, but two members can outvote him.
3. The roll is the legal product of a statutory officer, the ERO, working under rules the Centre frames. Under Section 13B of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, the electoral roll of each Assembly constituency is prepared and revised by an Electoral Registration Officer, an officer of the government or a local authority designated by the Commission in consultation with the State government. Section 21 provides for revision before each general election and at other times the Commission directs, and permits a special revision at any time for recorded reasons. The Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 — which prescribe Form 6 for new electors, Form 7 for objections and Form 8 for corrections — are made by the Central Government under Section 28 after consulting the Commission, which is why Mr. Joshi advised that Form 6 could not be altered without amending the Rules. A revision may be intensive (fresh house-to-house enumeration) or summary (updating the existing roll through claims and objections).
4. The roll is the gateway to universal adult franchise, and completed elections can be challenged only by petition. Article 325 provides one general electoral roll for every territorial constituency and bars exclusion on grounds only of religion, race, caste or sex, and Article 326 guarantees adult suffrage to every citizen aged 18, the age lowered from 21 by the 61st Amendment Act, 1988. The Election Laws (Amendment) Act, 2021 amended Section 14 of the 1950 Act to create four qualifying dates a year — 1 January, 1 April, 1 July and 1 October. Article 329(b) says no election to Parliament or a State legislature can be called in question except by an election petition, which under the Representation of the People Act, 1951 must be filed within 45 days of the result. Removal of a CEC follows the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968: a motion signed by at least 100 Lok Sabha or 50 Rajya Sabha members, an inquiry committee, and a special majority in both Houses.

Why UPSC loves this

1. GS2 names this exact topic. The syllabus asks for ‘appointment to various constitutional posts, powers, functions and responsibilities of various constitutional bodies’ and the ‘salient features of the Representation of People’s Act’. Mains questions on the Election Commission have moved from the Model Code of Conduct and electoral reforms towards its independence and credibility. Today’s story adds a dimension examiners are likely to use: the internal accountability of a multi-member body, not only its independence from the government.
2. Prelims keeps returning to Article 324 and the mechanics of the roll. UPSC has repeatedly tested who appoints and removes the CEC and the Election Commissioners, whether the multi-member structure comes from the Constitution or from statute, and how members are protected. The four qualifying dates, the statutory role of the ERO and the difference between summary and intensive revision are the natural next questions after two years of SIR coverage.

Analysis

1. The Commission’s rebuttal answers a question nobody asked. The charge is not that the three members disagreed and then voted; it is that decisions were issued in the Commission’s name without being placed before two of its three members. Saying that ‘all decisions’ were ‘unanimous’ does not meet that charge, and it sits uneasily with the record the papers describe: Mr. Sandhu’s August 13 note calling the Form 6 change ‘unauthorised/illegal’, and the two Commissioners jointly setting aside the July 28 work-allocation order on July 30. The Commission is right that recorded differences are normal in a collegial body, and the final SIR orders may well carry all three signatures. But the question is documentary, and minutes and file notings can settle it. Former Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa, speaking to The Hindu, put it exactly: the only refutation is a record showing the two were present when the decisions were taken.
2. Section 18 turns a political row into a question of legal authority, but it cannot unwind elections. If a statute vests a power in a three-member Commission and two members were bypassed, the act is open to challenge as ultra vires; Quraishi’s phrase is that ‘a letterhead cannot supply authority that the statute withholds’. The Form 6 change carries a second defect, because the form is prescribed by rules the Central Government frames, so even a unanimous Commission could not alter it by a direction. The most exposed acts are those litigated in the ECI’s name, such as the 16.10 lakh West Bengal appeals. The Opposition’s demand for fresh elections, however, runs into Article 329(b): a completed election can be questioned only by an election petition within 45 days, not by a later finding of internal irregularity. The realistic remedy is prospective — withdrawing unauthorised decisions and restoring the Rules — not undoing mandates.
3. A collegial body fails first in its routine, not in its headlines. The Economic Times report shows the price of a Commission that cannot act together. The annual Special Summary Revision, a convention since 1958, has not resumed after the 2024 cycle, so the four qualifying dates Parliament created in 2021 open doors with no one on the other side, and poll-bound Uttar Pradesh and Goa, The Economic Times notes, should have had one before their 2027 elections. Nearly 50 officials’ confidential reports wait because the three members could not sign together. The 2023 Act assumes cooperation: a rule of unanimity or majority presupposes that the members meet and see the files. Published rules of business, a minimum frequency of full-Commission meetings and time-bound disposal of routine files by majority would stop disagreement over the SIR from freezing everything else.
4. Software is quietly becoming the rule-maker, and the law has not caught up. The ERO is the statutory authority on who is a voter, yet in Goa an ERO’s decision, taken after the hearing the Supreme Court ordered on January 29, could not be recorded because permissions on ECINet are set in Delhi. Deputy Election Commissioner Sanjay Kumar wrote that EROs have powers under Sections 21 and 21A and that the IT system cannot block necessary action, and nothing followed. Manoj Kumar Jha’s formulation, that a constitutional right cannot become subordinate to software architecture, is the correct legal principle. Because the Goa Mediclaim Scheme, which pays for dialysis, transplants and chemotherapy, is open only to voters, a missing rollback button becomes a denial of health care. The Commission’s counter-argument is real — central control can stop local manipulation of rolls — so the answer is auditability, through the independent audit Mr. Joshi proposed in May, not a crude choice between central and local control.
5. Beneath the institutional quarrel lies a design choice about the burden of proof. Surjit S Bhalla frames the SIR as a choice between two errors: striking off a genuine voter, or leaving a ghost on the roll. He argues the costlier error is disenfranchisement, because a wrongly deleted voter loses the vote with certainty, while a ghost does harm only if someone impersonates him past polling agents, indelible ink and the tendered ballot. The 2002 revision presumed an existing entry correct until shown otherwise; the SIR demanded a fresh form from every voter and dropped those whose forms did not return. The CEC’s ‘zero appeals’ in 12 States measures how hard it is to appeal, not how accurate the roll is. The counter-view, which Bhalla concedes, is that a roll full of the dead and departed also diminishes every genuine vote; the answer is to keep the burden on the State and publish estimates of wrongful deletion.

Administrator's brainstorm