A group of 42 retired judges, including former Supreme Court judges and former chief justices and judges of various high courts, have defended the Election Commission against opposition criticism and backed the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls as a lawful exercise.
In an open letter addressed to the “people of India”, the former judges said they did not represent any political party but felt compelled to speak out as “silence is no longer a neutral choice”.
They alleged that constitutional institutions were facing a “sustained attack”, with the Election Commission at the centre of the criticism.
“Criticism of institutions is a democratic right. Denigration is not,” the former judges said, objecting to constitutional authorities being publicly labelled “thieves”, “puppets” and “compromised”.
They described the criticism of the EC and other institutions as a “calculated campaign” allegedly driven by political interests and warned against attempts to “destabilise the world's largest democracy”.
Backing the SIR exercise, the former judges said electoral law empowers the EC to revise electoral rolls at any time. They noted that intensive revisions had been conducted repeatedly since the first general elections, with the previous such exercise completed around two decades ago.
“No one called those revisions a conspiracy,” they said.
The statement comes amid a sustained confrontation between the opposition INDIA bloc and the EC over the SIR exercise. Opposition leaders have accused Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of manipulating electoral rolls to benefit the BJP and have demanded his resignation. The BJP and the EC have rejected the allegations.
The opposition has held protests in Delhi for three consecutive days. INDIA bloc MPs marched from Parliament on Tuesday, followed by an eight-hour sit-in led by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi at Akashvani Bhawan. On Wednesday, Gandhi and other opposition leaders staged a street protest at Jantar Mantar and were later detained by police.
The protests continued in the national capital on Thursday.
(With inputs from PTI)