Maharashtra’s Poll Chief Asks ECINet to Restore EROs’ Discretion, and the EC’s Nine-Point Note Partly Concedes

The news

Mumbai and New Delhi. Maharashtra’s Chief Electoral Officer S. Chockalingam wrote to the Election Commission of India (ECI) on September 24 seeking four changes to the ECINet software, each in effect a request that it let Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) use a discretion the law already gives them, The Indian Express reported on September 29. This builds on the paper’s September 23 report that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had recorded objections 14 times in 10 months; what is new is a State CEO’s formal letter and the Commission’s own reply. Maharashtra is the largest State now in the notice phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR); its draft roll of August 31 left out 21.1% of electors, and the final roll is due on November 16. A “logical discrepancy” is not a finding that someone is not a voter; it is a mismatch ECINet throws up when it tries to link an elector to a parent or grandparent on the last SIR roll, or when the elector submitted no document or only Aadhaar. The letter, addressed to Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Maneesh Garg, Director General of IT Seema Khanna and two officers, asked for an “Exempted from Hearing” option, since the rules give the ERO “the discretion to require” personal appearance; a 14th option, “Other/Other Equivalent Document”, because the 13 listed documents are “indicative and not exhaustive” and tribal, homeless and sex-worker communities may not have them; power for EROs to dispose of all categories of discrepancy on a booth-level officer’s statement or panchnama; and an optional, not mandatory, “Extract of Last SIR” upload. He also sought written FAQs, saying “oral instructions from ECI or CEO are insufficient”. On August 14, Mr. Sandhu had written that the powers of CEOs, DEOs and EROs were “curtailed by centralised control of ERONet at DG(IT) level.” On September 26, after a full Commission meeting, the ECI issued a four-page note with nine decisions: EROs may exempt electors flagged for logical discrepancies from personal hearing; agendas will be circulated before every meeting and minutes issued afterwards; officers’ foreign trips need Commission approval; new IT modules go through a committee of officers; ECINet will be reviewed by a committee headed by a senior Deputy Election Commissioner with an independent IIT expert; and Commissioners’ directions will be “meticulously complied with”. The Indian Express editorial calls the note welcome but short, and Yogendra Yadav argues it is “a formal admission of guilt”. Separately, the Supreme Court declined to advance the hearing on West Bengal SIR exclusion appeals before the October 6 bypolls in Nandigram and Rejinagar, with CJI Surya Kant saying “these are only by-elections”. The syllabus link is GS2: the Election Commission, the Representation of the People Act and statutory bodies.

Static syllabus linkage

1. The Representation of the People Act, 1950 places the voters’ list in the hands of the ERO. Section 13B provides that the electoral roll for every Assembly constituency is prepared and revised by an Electoral Registration Officer, designated by the Election Commission in consultation with the State government; in practice the ERO is usually a sub-divisional magistrate. Section 13A provides for a Chief Electoral Officer in each State, and Section 13AA for District Election Officers. Section 21 covers preparation and revision of rolls and allows the Commission to direct a special revision; Section 22 covers correction of entries, Section 23 inclusion of names, and Section 24 appeals against the ERO’s orders. The detailed procedure, including notices, hearings and objections, is in the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, framed by the Central government in consultation with the Commission.
2. Article 324 gives the Commission superintendence, not a licence to override statute. Article 324(1) vests the superintendence, direction and control of the preparation of electoral rolls and the conduct of elections in the Election Commission. In Mohinder Singh Gill v. Chief Election Commissioner (1978), the Supreme Court held that this power fills gaps where law is silent but must be exercised in conformity with laws made by Parliament under Article 327. Article 326 guarantees elections on the basis of adult suffrage to every citizen aged 18 or above who is not otherwise disqualified. Article 325 bars exclusion from the roll on grounds only of religion, race, caste or sex.
3. The Commission is a multi-member body, and removal of its members follows different tracks. Under Article 324(2), the Commission consists of the Chief Election Commissioner and such number of other Election Commissioners as the President fixes; it has had three members since 1993. In T.N. Seshan v. Union of India (1995), the Supreme Court upheld the multi-member Commission and decision by majority, with the CEC as first among equals. Under Article 324(5), the CEC can be removed only in the manner and on the grounds of a Supreme Court judge, that is, by an address of each House of Parliament passed by a special majority on grounds of proved misbehaviour or incapacity under Article 124(4). The other Election Commissioners can be removed only on the CEC’s recommendation.
4. Appointments are now governed by the 2023 Act, which followed Anoop Baranwal. In Anoop Baranwal v. Union of India (2023), a Constitution Bench directed that, until Parliament made a law, the CEC and Election Commissioners be appointed on the advice of a committee of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and the Chief Justice of India. Parliament then passed the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023, which replaced the Chief Justice with a Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister. The Act repeats the constitutional removal protection for the CEC. The removal process for a Supreme Court judge, which the CEC’s removal follows, is detailed in the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968.

Why UPSC loves this

1. Electoral reform and the autonomy of the Election Commission are staple GS2 questions. UPSC has asked about the independence of the Election Commission, the appointment process and electoral reforms. The ECINet dispute adds a new dimension: whether an institution’s internal technology can shift power away from the officers the law names, which fits the syllabus line on statutory and constitutional bodies.
2. E-governance questions are moving from benefits to accountability. Earlier GS2 questions on e-governance stressed efficiency and transparency. Today’s story shows the other side: when a central platform decides what options a field officer has, accountability shifts to whoever writes the software. That argument is useful for any answer on digital public infrastructure.
3. Prelims tests the Article 324 architecture. Questions have asked about the composition of the Election Commission, the removal of the CEC and Election Commissioners, and the Representation of the People Acts of 1950 and 1951. The difference between the CEC’s protection and that of the other Commissioners is a frequent trap.

Analysis

1. In a digital roll, software design is the real rulebook. The rules say an ERO may require an elector to appear in person, which means the ERO may also decide not to. If the software menu offers only two options and neither waives the hearing, the discretion exists on paper and nowhere else. This is what the idea that “code is law” means in plain terms: whoever designs the interface decides what an officer can actually do. Delegated legislation such as the 1960 Rules is published, debated and can be challenged in court; a software configuration changed in Delhi is none of these. The Commission’s promise of a review committee is a step, but the durable fix is to publish ECINet’s decision rules and tie each one to a legal provision.
2. Centralisation undercuts the Commission’s own best defence. As the Express notes, the Commission has for decades answered allegations of roll manipulation by pointing to a decentralised design in which no single person controls the list. A central IT division that decides what EROs can do weakens that answer, because it creates exactly the single point of control critics fear. The counter-view deserves weight: central systems catch duplicate entries and prevent local officers from being pressured, and uniform procedures help a nationwide revision. The balance lies in central checks with local decisions, not central decisions with local clerical work.
3. The nine-point note concedes the process, not the accountability. Agendas, minutes, approval for foreign trips and a committee for IT modules are basic features of any collegial body, and their promise now implies they were missing. The Express editorial points out what the note does not answer: who inserted the parents question into Form 6 in July, what action follows against named officers, who authorised appeals against voters restored by judicial officers in Bengal, and why Goa’s restoration software was never enabled. A reform that changes procedures for the future without explaining the past invites the suspicion that the problem was the exposure, not the conduct.
4. Yogendra Yadav’s impeachment case sets a high bar that politics alone cannot meet. Mr. Yadav argues that the note is a formal admission of guilt, citing its paragraphs on agendas, Form 6 and an ECINet review, and invoking Section 32(1) of the 1950 Act on breach of official duty in roll preparation. His own framing concedes that removal under Article 324(5) requires proved misbehaviour, not error or good-faith misinterpretation. The earlier motion, moved in March by 63 Rajya Sabha and 130 Lok Sabha MPs, was rejected by the presiding officers on April 6, and a fresh Rajya Sabha notice of April 24 is pending. Removal needs a special majority the Opposition does not have, so the practical value of the motion is to force an inquiry and a record, which is where the argument should focus.
5. The Bengal case shows how delay can decide rights. The Election Commission’s September 16 affidavit said 1,26,194 of 38,31,429 SIR appeals had been decided and 37,05,235 were pending. In Nandigram, 89 of 6,443 appellants have been restored; in Rejinagar, four of 12,452. The Supreme Court’s view that bypolls are not urgent is defensible as docket management, but for an excluded voter every election missed is a vote lost for good. When the appeal machinery cannot keep up with deletions made through software, the burden of the system’s error falls on the citizen, which is the reverse of what a fair roll revision should do.

Administrator's brainstorm