By Dr Muzaffar Hussain Ghazali
NEW DELHI: In India, the office of the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) is far more than an ordinary government position. It is part of the constitutional machinery responsible for protecting the integrity of the electoral process. The preparation and revision of electoral rolls, the conduct and supervision of elections, the regulation of the electoral process and the maintenance of public confidence in elections are among the responsibilities associated with the Election Commission of India (ECI). The Constitution vests the superintendence, direction and control of elections and the preparation of electoral rolls in the Commission.
That is why serious allegations concerning the functioning of a Chief Election Commissioner raise questions extending beyond an individual office-holder. They inevitably touch upon public confidence in the electoral institution itself.
This brings us to the question now being debated in India: Can Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar actually be removed from office?
The answer cannot be found in political slogans alone. It lies in the Constitution, the statutory framework and the facts presently before the courts and the public.
Gyanesh Kumar assumed office as India’s 26th Chief Election Commissioner on 19 February 2025. The controversy surrounding the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has subsequently placed the functioning of the Election Commission under intense public and political scrutiny.
Removal of a CEC is not an ordinary administrative matter
The removal of the Chief Election Commissioner is fundamentally different from the removal of an ordinary government official.
Article 324(5) of the Constitution provides that the CEC shall not be removed from office except in the same manner and on the same grounds as a Judge of the Supreme Court. The same constitutional provision states that an Election Commissioner other than the CEC may be removed only on the recommendation of the Chief Election Commissioner.
The 2023 Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act contains provisions dealing with resignation and removal, but the underlying protection against removal of the CEC derives from the Constitution.
In practical terms, removal therefore requires a constitutionally prescribed parliamentary process involving both Houses of Parliament and the special majority applicable to the removal of a Supreme Court judge. The President then issues the order of removal.
This makes the distinction between a political demand for resignation and a constitutional removal extremely important.
A political party, civil-society organisation or group of citizens may demand the resignation of a CEC relatively easily. But transforming such a demand into lawful removal is an entirely different matter. It requires evidence, an established constitutional ground, parliamentary proceedings and the requisite majority.
The legal route therefore exists, but it is deliberately difficult.
What about the other Election Commissioners?
The constitutional position is different for the other Election Commissioners.
Article 324(5) specifically provides that an Election Commissioner other than the CEC cannot be removed from office except on the recommendation of the Chief Election Commissioner.
This distinction is important because it demonstrates that the Constitution was designed to provide the head of the Election Commission with a particularly high degree of security of tenure. The underlying purpose is institutional independence: an election authority cannot function freely if its head can be removed by the executive whenever political disagreements arise.
At the same time, institutional independence cannot mean complete immunity from accountability.
Section 16 and the question of legal protection
Another provision that has attracted attention is Section 16 of the 2023 Act.
The provision states that no court shall entertain or continue civil or criminal proceedings against a person who is or was a CEC or Election Commissioner for an act, thing or word done or spoken in the course of acting, or purporting to act, in the discharge of official duty or function.
This is a significant statutory protection. But it should not be inaccurately described as an unlimited immunity from all legal proceedings for the rest of a person’s life. Its wording is connected specifically with acts undertaken in the discharge, or purported discharge, of official functions.
The provision has nevertheless generated a serious debate about accountability and institutional checks and balances. Any assessment of its constitutional validity will ultimately depend on judicial interpretation.
The SIR controversy
The immediate controversy centres on the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision, or SIR, of electoral rolls.
The exercise began in Bihar in June 2025 and was subsequently expanded to other parts of the country. By September 2026, reports based on draft electoral rolls indicated that more than 13 crore names had been excluded from draft rolls across 30 States and Union Territories.
The distinction between deletion from a draft roll and permanent disenfranchisement is crucial. The figure of 13 crore should not be presented as 13 crore citizens permanently deprived of their constitutional right to vote. The SIR process includes claims, objections, verification and appeals, and the Election Commission has also announced mechanisms for restoring eligible voters who were left out.
Nevertheless, the sheer scale of the exclusions raises an important democratic question: How effectively can an eligible citizen challenge an erroneous exclusion before an election?
That is not merely an administrative question. For an eligible voter, exclusion from the electoral roll can mean exclusion from participation in the electoral process.
Questions over decision-making within the Election Commission
The controversy has deepened following reports that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi recorded objections on several occasions concerning decisions relating to electoral-roll management, voter registration and the handling of electoral data.
An Indian Express investigation reported at least 14 formal objections over a period of ten months, including concerns regarding changes to Form 6 and the centralisation of electoral-roll data.
The Election Commission, however, has disputed the interpretation that these objections demonstrate unilateral decision-making. The Commission has maintained that its decisions were taken unanimously and that differences during internal deliberations should not be confused with institutional dysfunction.
This is precisely why the issue deserves independent scrutiny rather than political assertion.
The relevant statutory framework provides that the business of the Commission should, as far as possible, be conducted unanimously and that where the Commissioners differ, the matter is to be decided by the majority.
The real question, therefore, is not simply whether disagreements occurred. It is how decisions were formally recorded, who was authorised to take them, and whether the statutory decision-making process was followed in each disputed instance.
ECINET and the centralisation debate
Technology has added another dimension to the controversy.
The Election Commission launched ECINET, a unified digital platform for election-related information and services, on 22 January 2026. According to the ECI, the platform was envisaged by Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar along with Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi. It integrates more than 40 applications and portals and includes services relating to voter registration, electoral-roll searches, grievances and communication with election officials.
The controversy is not necessarily about digitisation itself. The more important question is who controls access to electoral-roll data and whether the software permits statutory election officials at the constituency level to exercise the powers assigned to them by law.
Reports have said that Election Commissioners Sandhu and Joshi raised concerns about the gradual centralisation of electoral-roll data and the access available to state-level election officials.
The ECI, on the other hand, has said that ECINET is a decentralised platform and that statutory functions remain with the designated election officials.
The distinction matters. Software should facilitate statutory authority, not silently redefine it.
The Election Commission has now ordered a review of the ECINET system, including an independent technical component, and has made changes to the SIR hearing process to reduce the burden on voters.
The Supreme Court enters the picture
The dispute is no longer confined to political statements.
A petition filed in the Supreme Court in September 2026 has challenged aspects of the ECI’s decision-making in connection with the SIR and alleged that certain decisions, guidelines and software changes were made without the concurrence of the other Election Commissioners. The petition has sought judicial intervention and an investigation into the disputed decisions.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a petition challenging the functioning of the Election Commission under CEC Gyanesh Kumar and aspects of the SIR process.
That development makes it particularly important to distinguish between allegations, evidence and findings. Allegations made in a petition are not judicial findings. Likewise, objections recorded by Election Commissioners are significant, but they do not by themselves establish that the CEC acted unlawfully.
The courts will have to examine the record.
The question of the electoral roll
There is, however, a larger democratic issue that cannot be reduced to a legal dispute between institutions.
Electoral rolls have to be accurate. Dead persons, duplicate entries and persons who have permanently shifted away should not remain on the rolls. At the same time, an eligible citizen should not lose the right to vote merely because of an administrative error, a spelling discrepancy, migration history, technological problem or difficulty in producing a particular document.
The ECI’s own voter-service platform provides mechanisms for registration, correction, deletion, appeals and complaints.
The real test is therefore whether these remedies are accessible, timely and effective, particularly for elderly people, migrants, economically vulnerable citizens and those who may struggle to navigate a complex digital or documentary process.
A voter is not merely a number appearing once every five years in an electoral database. The presence of a citizen’s name on the electoral roll is the practical gateway to participation in an election.
That is why the question is not simply how many names have been removed. The more important question is how many eligible voters may have been wrongly excluded and how quickly they can obtain an effective remedy.
Can political pressure remove the CEC?
Opposition parties and political organisations have demanded the resignation or removal of Gyanesh Kumar. The Congress Working Committee, for example, has recently demanded his resignation and called for suspension of the SIR process and restoration of names that it says were removed from electoral rolls. These are political demands, not judicial findings.
But political pressure, public demonstrations or parliamentary speeches cannot by themselves remove a Chief Election Commissioner.
A resignation is voluntary.
A constitutional removal is a formal process.
These are two entirely different routes.
The practical difficulty of removing a CEC is therefore not a technical loophole. It is a constitutional safeguard intended to protect the independence of the Election Commission. The same safeguard, however, places a correspondingly greater responsibility on Parliament, the courts and the public to ensure that credible allegations are examined through proper institutional mechanisms.
The larger question: Is removing one person enough?
Perhaps the most important question is not whether Gyanesh Kumar can be removed.
It is whether removing one individual would resolve the institutional problems now being debated.
Institutions are larger than the individuals who occupy them. One CEC eventually gives way to another. If the problem lies in the architecture of electoral governance, changing the occupant of the office alone may not address it.
India needs an electoral system in which the Election Commission is genuinely independent of political pressure while remaining accountable to the Constitution, Parliament, the judiciary and the citizens whose elections it administers.
Electoral democracy rests on three forms of public confidence: confidence in the vote, confidence in the electoral roll and confidence in the institution conducting the election.
If any one of these is seriously weakened, the legitimacy of the entire process can come under strain.
The controversy surrounding SIR has therefore raised a question larger than the fate of one Chief Election Commissioner. The real test is whether India’s constitutional system can provide an effective mechanism for resolving disputes over electoral administration—one that protects the Election Commission from political retaliation while also protecting voters from administrative exclusion.
The strongest person in a democracy is not the Chief Election Commissioner.
It is the voter whose name is lawfully present on the electoral roll, who can cast a vote without obstruction, and who has confidence that the vote will be counted according to law.
That is ultimately what the debate over SIR, ECINET, the Election Commission and the tenure of the CEC is about.
And if the present controversy continues to escalate, it may also generate further litigation and appeals to domestic and, potentially, international human-rights institutions. But before any such step, the first responsibility remains with India’s own constitutional institutions: to establish the facts, provide effective remedies to eligible voters, and ensure that the electoral process remains both independent and accountable.
*The writer is a Delhi-based senior journalist.
Courtesy: India Tomorrow
