SC Gives Good News And Bad News To Gyanesh Kumar

Possibly for the first time in recent years, the election commission is under serious scrutiny from the public. The election commission chief Gyanesh Kumar is facing the brunt of the attack from the opposition and also the cockroach party movement.

The matter is so very serious now that the Supreme Court has started to comment on the series of events and there is a bit of good news and bad news to the election commission chief.

Firstly, Chief Justice Surya Kant clarified that the Supreme Court has not approved any modified version of Form 6 used for inclusion of names in electoral rolls during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). This pushes the blame entirely on the election commission chief, and any discrepancies will fall under his jurisdiction in the future.

Then, the Supreme Court issued notice to the Centre and Election Commission on plea questioning CEC Gyanesh Kumar’s functioning and decisions concerning the SIR exercise. The election commission will have to clarify if all the decisions were taken unilaterally or unanimously.

But for now, the positive thing for Gyanesh Kumar is that the Court declined to pass interim orders and said it will presume ECI decisions are taken in accordance with law.

This would essentially mean that the Supreme Court has not suspended Gyanesh Kumar or his decisions for the time being. But he is very much under the scrutiny of the Supreme Court, and all of the previous decisions will come under further scrutiny henceforth.