NEW DELHI: Amid the SC's verdict and observation on September 23 by Justice Dipankar Datta against the independence and functioning of the Election Commission, apex court lawyer Brajesh Singh has written a letter to Attorney General (AG) R Venkataramani seeking permission to initiate criminal contempt proceedings against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar.
Citing media reports, the letter, a copy exclusively accessed by TNIE, states that the CEC ran the multi-member Election Commission as if all decisions were being taken by a single person. This not only affects the independence and impartiality of the Election Commission, but is also against the arrangement laid down by the Supreme Court in its earlier judgments.
As per the rules, before initiating contempt proceedings against anyone in the top court, written permission has to be obtained from the AG or the Solicitor General (SG).
Singh cited that he sought this action against the CEC after reading an explosive investigative report published on September 23 by a media house, in which it was revealed that there were deep structural subversions and a complete breakdown of multi-member consensus within the ECI.
"According to official records uncovered in the report, the other two sitting Election Commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, formally registered written objections at least 14 times over the last 10 months. The Commissioners flagged numerous major policy actions, including sweeping alterations to voter registration software, changes to Form 6, and the deletion/restoration of voter names under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process, as being unauthorised, illegal, and executed entirely without their knowledge or the approval of the full Commission," the plea said.
Advocate Singh stated that the actions of the CEC constitute ex-facie criminal contempt on the following grounds:
"By undermining the majesty and dignity of a Constitutional body and by reducing a constitutionally mandated multi-member independent panel into a one-man autocracy, the CEC has scandalized and lowered the authority of the institution, directly threatening the free and fair elections doctrine, which forms part of the Basic Structure of the Constitution," the plea said.
Singh further cited that there were wilful violations of Supreme Court precedents. The apex court, in its landmark judgments -- including EX-CEC, T.N. Seshan Versus Union of India and Anoop Baranwal versus UOI -- explicitly mandated that the ECI must function through institutional consensus, where the CEC behaves as a primus inter pares (first among equals) rather than an absolute authority.
"Bypassing fellow commissioners to secretly issue public dictates under the banner of the Full Commission constitutes willful defiance of the law declared by the Supreme Court under Article 141. There is a compromise with the integrity of the centralized electoral database and executing illegal voter purges without statutory consensus. These actions directly interfere with the ongoing democratic processes and judicial reviews concerning electoral transparency," Singh in his plea added.