-
Over 2,000 citizens have urged the Supreme Court to take suo motu cognisance of alleged irregularities in the EC’s SIR exercise
-
The open letter alleges internal dissent among election commissioners, unauthorised changes to Form 6 and centralised control of voter data
-
Signatories include former Rajya Sabha MP Jawhar Sircar, economists Jayati Ghosh and Kamal Malhotra, and retired professors Aditya and Mridula Mukherjee
More than 2,000 citizens, including academics, lawyers, former civil servants, activists, journalists and retired military personnel, have written an open letter to Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and other Supreme Court judges seeking urgent judicial intervention over the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
The signatories have urged the Supreme Court to take suo motu cognisance of what they describe as ‘grave irregularities, institutional rupture, and alleged illegalities’ in the functioning of the Election Commission and its handling of electoral roll data.
The letter, titled ‘An Open Letter to the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India and Companion Justices of the Supreme Court of India’, seeks an immediate stay and cancellation of the SIR exercise, an independent investigation into the functioning of the ECI and a comprehensive audit of its centralised ECINet technology platform.
Among the prominent signatories are former Rajya Sabha MP and former government secretary Jawhar Sircar, economists Jayati Ghosh and Kamal Malhotra, retired JNU professors Aditya Mukherjee and Mridula Mukherjee, retired Navy chief Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat, retired Delhi University professor Anita Rampal, retired scientist Gauhar Raza and activist Anjali Bhardwaj. The letter is submitted by Aditya Mukherjee, Mridula Mukherjee, Bhardwaj, Raza, Amrita Johri and Shabnam Hashmi on behalf of the more than 2,000 citizens.
A central allegation in the letter concerns what the signatories describe as internal dissent within the three-member ECI. Citing official records, they claim election commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi objected at least 14 times over a 10-month period to decisions they said had been taken without their knowledge or consent.
