ExplainedElections
What the INDIA bloc's Supreme Court petition on the SIR asks for
Rahul Gandhi and 10 other opposition leaders want the voter roll revision stopped, its records opened up and its deletions audited. Here is what they are asking, on what legal grounds, and what the Election Commission says.
The short answer
The petition, filed on 12 October by Rahul Gandhi and 10 other INDIA bloc leaders against the Election Commission and its three commissioners, asks the Supreme Court to suspend the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in all states while the case is heard. It also seeks the Commission's internal records on the SIR, an audit of deletions by a committee led by a retired Supreme Court judge, booth-wise lists of deleted voters and a rule that no name is struck off without notice and a hearing. The Election Commission says its SIR decisions were unanimous and have been upheld by the court.
What is the petition?
It is a writ petition filed in the Supreme Court on 12 October by 11 INDIA bloc leaders against the Election Commission of India (ECI) over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The case, Rahul Gandhi v. Election Commission of India, carries Diary No. 64196/2026 and was filed through advocate-on-record S Prasanna as the opposition’s march towards the court was stopped by police.
The petitioners are Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge of the Congress, Akhilesh Yadav (Samajwadi Party), Tejashwi Yadav (RJD), Saugata Roy (Trinamool Congress), Supriya Sule (NCP-SP), Sanjay Raut (Shiv Sena-UBT), D Raja (CPI), M A Baby (CPI-M), Mahua Majhi (JMM) and E T Mohammed Basheer (IUML). The respondents are the ECI, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi.
What does it ask the court to do?
Its central request is that the SIR be suspended “across all States pending adjudication of the petition”. It lists 10 reliefs in all. The main ones:
- Disclosure of the ECI’s files, minutes, notings and access logs from its ECINET and ERONET systems on the SIR, including the full file on the decision of 24 June 2025 to launch it.
- A review of whether those decisions were lawful, and the quashing of any taken without legal authority.
- Action against officials found to have broken the law on preparing rolls.
- A committee headed by a retired Supreme Court judge, with technical experts, to audit SIR deletions, access to the voter databases and EVM processes.
- Booth-wise lists of deleted voters with reasons and an age and gender breakdown, plus a way to restore wrongly removed names.
- No deletion of any name without notice and a hearing, and a chance for eligible voters in Punjab and other poll-bound states to apply for inclusion until the legal cut-off.
The petition does not, in the versions reported, ask for the Chief Election Commissioner’s removal. That has been a demand of the street protests; removing a CEC needs a motion passed by both Houses of Parliament.
The petition at a glance
- 64196/2026Supreme Court diary number
- 11petitioners, from 10 INDIA bloc parties
- 4respondents: the ECI, the CEC and two Election Commissioners
- 10reliefs sought, led by a stay on the SIR in all states
What laws does it rely on?
It asks the court to test the SIR decisions against Article 324 of the Constitution, the provision on the ECI’s powers over elections. It also relies on Section 18 of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023, which the petitioners read as requiring decisions to be taken by the full Commission and minuted, and on principles from the T N Seshan judgment on how the Commission must function.
For action against officials, it invokes Section 32 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950. On forms, it relies on the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, which prescribe the format of Form 6.
Why are the commissioners named personally?
Because the petition rests partly on claims that SIR decisions were taken without the full Commission. In September, a newspaper report said the two Election Commissioners had objected “at least 14 times over the last 10 months to decisions taken and orders issued without their knowledge.” The ECI replied that “All these decisions are an outcome of the unanimous decisions of the full Commission in the past one year” and that “differing views and observations are a normal part of deliberation in any institution.”
Where does Form 6 come in?
The petition asks that online Form 6, used to add a name to the roll, match the format in the 1960 Rules. The ECI added an SIR declaration to the form. On 5 October a bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant said, “Any modification to Form 6 has not been approved by us.” The ECI’s position is that “The declaration attached to Form 6 for SIR has been upheld by the Hon’ble Supreme Court.”
What does the other side say?
The ECI and the BJP say the SIR is lawful and has already been tested in court. The ECI says the Bihar SIR order of 24 June 2025 “was issued with the unanimous approval of the Commission” and was upheld by the Supreme Court in its judgment of 27 May 2026. BJP national spokesperson Guru Prakash Paswan called the opposition’s claims “baseless” and said: “The Supreme Court has already ruled on the constitutionality of SIR.”
What happens next?
Other SIR cases were listed for 13 October, and the Chief Justice indicated the opposition’s petition could be heard alongside them. The court can issue notice to the ECI and ask for its reply, grant or refuse interim relief such as a stay, or tag the case with the pending matters. Any order on a nationwide stay would affect revisions now under way in several states, including poll-bound states such as Punjab.