42 Former Judges Open Letter on Election Commission, SIR

At a time when the Opposition is staging protests against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, 42 former judges and retired constitutional office-holders have put their names to an open letter warning against what they call a sustained campaign to undermine the Election Commission and other institutions.

What the open letter says

The letter is dated 7 October. Its signatories say their concern is "grave" and that India's constitutional bodies are under sustained attack, with the Election Commission of India at the centre. They add that the higher judiciary and statutory agencies have not been spared either.

The judges say this is not reasoned criticism. In their words, it appears to be a calculated campaign driven by vested political interests, with little regard for the consequences of destabilising the world's largest democracy. They also warn that repeatedly branding constitutional authorities as "thieves" and "compromised" erodes public faith.

"When the ballot loses meaning, the street gains it"

The letter's most quoted line is a warning about what happens when trust in elections breaks down: "When the ballot loses meaning, the street gains it." The signatories argue that unrest begins with a narrative, and that anarchic and fringe elements then move into the vacuum. They say some are homegrown, and some take their cues from beyond India's borders.

They draw a line between criticism and attack: criticism of institutions is a democratic right, they say, but denigration is not.

Their defence of the SIR

The judges defend the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls as a legally established exercise meant to produce clean and accurate voter lists. According to the report, the letter cites Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, which empowers the Election Commission to revise rolls at any time, and refers to a Supreme Court ruling that upheld the SIR as lawful.

What they say about "vote theft" allegations

The letter questions allegations of "vote theft" made without supporting evidence. The signatories say such claims are made at press conferences, not before courts, and that when the Commission asked for a sworn declaration, none was filed. They also point out that electronic voting machines are blamed only after defeats, while victories on the same machines go unquestioned.

They also criticise activist groups, saying that petitions are filed one after another, but proof seldom is. The courtroom, they say, becomes a stage. According to the report, the letter does not name any party, though the outlet reads its criticism as aimed at the Congress. We have not seen a response from the Congress.

Who signed

Signatories include former Supreme Court judges Hemant Gupta and Pankaj Mittal, along with other former Supreme Court judges and high court chief justices. The letter urges political parties to take their grievances to the Election Commission and the courts, with evidence, rather than undermine public confidence in elections.

The other side of the argument

The letter comes in a heated week, and not every senior legal voice agrees with it. Earlier this week, former Supreme Court judge Rohinton Fali Nariman voiced serious concern about the Election Commission's functioning, saying that people's right to vote "is at great peril." According to the report, he also pointed to the disenfranchisement of 90 lakh voters in West Bengal and asked for the Supreme Court's intervention. We have not independently verified this figure.

Supreme Court Justice Ujjal Bhuyan has also said that any process taking away the voting rights of a huge number of citizens would be a negation of the constitutional order.

Why the timing matters

The letter lands amid massive Opposition protests against Gyanesh Kumar and the SIR, including marches in Delhi and Patna, where Opposition leaders were detained. The Opposition alleges irregularities in the SIR and demands Kumar's resignation, while the Election Commission and its supporters say the exercise is lawful. Both camps are now appealing to the same idea, public trust in elections, from opposite directions.

Himanta Sarma's remarks on ballot papers and EVMs

The debate over how votes are cast spilt into Assam on Tuesday. After the BJP-led NDA won the first Silchar Municipal Corporation election, with Moneycontrol reporting 34 of the 42 seats, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma took a swipe at the Congress. He said the party does even worse when voting is done on paper ballots, and he claimed that people sometimes press NOTA or panic at the machine and vote in the wrong place on EVMs. The report we have seen cuts off his remarks there, so we haven't included the rest.

The election was the city's first since Silchar was upgraded from a municipality board to a corporation, with polling on 3 October and counting on 6 October. Before the vote, Sarma had said the BJP had already won two seats uncontested. We have not seen a response from the Congress to his comments.

It is not yet clear whether the letter will change the course of the protests. The Opposition and the Election Commission are expected to respond, and the courts remain the formal route for disputes over the SIR.