A petition lodged by Congress MP and Lok Sabha Opposition Leader Rahul Gandhi before the Supreme Court on Monday named Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar as respondent, with the filing calling for an independent review of voter rolls, an examination of reported mass deletions, and a halt to the Special Intensive Revision exercise then under way nationwide.

Among those named as petitioners are Rahul Gandhi, who heads the filing, alongside figures drawn from several opposition parties — Mallikarjun Kharge of the Congress, Tejashwi Yadav from the RJD, Saugata Roy representing the TMC, and Akhilesh Yadav, who leads the Samajwadi Party. Among the additional petitioners are Sanjay Raut of Shiv Sena (UBT), Mahua Majhi representing JMM, MA Baby from CPI(M), Supriya Sule of NCP (SP), D Raja affiliated with CPI, and ET Mohammed Basheer standing for IUML.

The filing raised concerns about procedural irregularities and called for an independent audit of voter databases and deletion records, while also requesting that a retired Supreme Court judge chair a specially formed committee tasked with scrutinising how the electoral roll revision was carried out and assessing the technical frameworks underpinning both the voter registers and Electronic Voting Machines.

The Article 32 filing before the court is asking for a nationwide halt to the SIR exercise, to remain in place until the constitutional questions raised in the petition are resolved. Those filing the petition have put forward a challenge centred on whether the Chief Election Commissioner acted on matters falling under the body's shared authority without consulting or obtaining agreement from the remaining commissioners.

Among the materials requested are internal records tied to the choice to launch the nationwide SIR — a set that spans files, minutes, notings, and any objections the commissioners placed on record.

At the heart of the plea lies a two-part constitutional argument: that the Election Commission operates as a collegial body with multiple members rather than acting unilaterally, and that any exercise of authority over electoral rolls draws its legitimacy from both Article 324 of the Constitution and Section 18 of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023.

A newspaper article dated 23 September 2026 forms the basis of the petition, with that report documenting no fewer than 14 separate objections lodged by the two Election Commissioners across a ten-month window — objections covering matters such as voter registration procedures, the removal and reinstatement of names from electoral rolls, and access to the underlying data held within those rolls. The report also sets out the Election Commission's position that the findings captured only one side of the matter, that divergent views were a natural feature of deliberative processes, and that every decision reached had been unanimous.

At issue in the petition is whether any formal decision was ever made authorising the SIR on a nationwide basis. RTI Act, 2005 responses are cited, with documents showing that a request for the files and internal notings tied to the decision behind the exercise yielded nothing beyond the Commission's order of 24 June 2025. The petition further noted that the First Appellate Authority had placed on record its finding that no resolution to launch a countrywide SIR in 2025 had been reached by the Commission at that point.

Those filing the petition contend that the position taken in that communication sits at odds with two earlier documents from the Commission — a directive dated 24 June 2025 and a press note from 26 September 2026, both of which recorded the decision as having been adopted with the full agreement of all Commission members.

At issue in the petition is a change made to the web-based Form 6 hosted on the ECINET platform during July 2026, specifically the addition of a declaration requiring applicants to state whether they or any family members appeared on a previous SIR electoral roll. The petition contends that the additional declaration was added to the process without any revision to the underlying rules, leaving a procedural gap that may place an extra burden on eligible voters — new participants at the ballot box especially.

The document also points to a verbal clarification issued by the Supreme Court on 5 October, during ongoing SIR proceedings, in which the bench stated that the modified Form 6 had not received its approval.

The filing calls for an independent technical review of the ECINET and ERONET voter-roll systems, covering how access permissions are granted, how entries are modified or removed, and what processes exist for reinstating eligible voters. The filing argues that routing database oversight through a single administrative hub, combined with the absence of any clear mechanism for reinstating wrongly removed voters, could leave Electoral Registration Officers with less practical authority than statute grants them.

Among the issues raised in the petition are questions about how objections to voter-roll deletions have been handled, including what are described as mass submissions of Form 7 objections, the apparent use of fabricated signatures, and a pattern of targeting along community and gender lines.

According to the petition, a draft electoral roll released in Punjab on 13 August 2026 showed the voter register had contracted by around 20.66 lakh names against a total of roughly 2.14 crore voters counted in June 2026. Around 12.80 lakh voters whose names appeared on earlier rolls could not be matched against the electoral registers drawn up following the 2003 revision, leaving them with a one-month window to furnish supporting documents or face removal from the voter list.

Those filing the petition have made clear that their challenge does not extend to questioning the validity of the SIR itself — a matter the Supreme Court already resolved on 27 May 2026, through its ruling in Association for Democratic Reforms v. India's constitutional body responsible for overseeing and administering the country's electoral processes. What they are asking for, rather, is an examination of whether the protections the court established and the relevant legal obligations are being honoured throughout the process of putting the order into effect.

Beyond the electoral-roll revision, the petition calls for an independent body to examine the decisions, policies, procedures, and technical architecture that govern how electronic voting machines are deployed and operated, measured against international standards. Among the petition's demands are the safeguarding and disclosure of pertinent documents, an inquiry into whether constitutional and statutory obligations were honoured, and accountability measures directed at those found to have acted improperly.