Supreme Court Advocates Protest Outside Election Commission Headquarters, Demand Resignation of CEC Gyanesh Kumar Over SIR Row
New Delhi: Tension escalated outside the Election Commission of India headquarters on Ashoka Road today as a group of Supreme Court advocates staged a vociferous protest demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, accusing the poll panel of conducting a “non-transparent and partisan” Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
The advocates, raising slogans of “ECI Must Be Transparent” and holding placards demanding “CEC Must Resign,” alleged that the Commission has become an opaque and unaccountable institution under Kumar. The protest comes a day after the Supreme Court agreed to give precedence hearing to petitions challenging the Delhi SIR.
The advocates cited the same grounds that the Opposition has been raising for months – alleged voter list fraud, refusal to provide machine-readable voter lists, refusal to release CCTV footage from polling booths, and the massive deletion of voters in the name of SIR.
In Delhi alone, the petition filed by advocates Prashant Bhushan and Neha Rathi before the Supreme Court points out that the draft roll published on August 31 contains 97,53,577 electors — around 32.8% fewer than the 1,45,10,299 names on Delhi’s rolls before the revision. Of the 47,56,722 names excluded, 57.2% were men and 42.8% women under the ASDD category – Absent, Shifted, Dead or Duplicate.
Separate from these exclusions, 33,12,919 voters whose names have remained in the draft roll have been flagged for possible discrepancies – 13,79,785 categorised as having “no mapping” with the 2002 roll and 19,33,134 classified under “logical discrepancies” – a term which petitioners say has not been defined anywhere.
Senior advocate Prashant Bhushan told the Supreme Court bench headed by CJI Surya Kant that notices are being issued with generic descriptions without enabling electors to understand and answer them, and that names of persons issued notices are not being published on the CEO website as required by ECI’s own May 14, 2026 communication.
The protest by advocates mirrors the political offensive. The INDIA bloc had moved impeachment notices against CEC Gyanesh Kumar in March 2026 – signed by 63 Rajya Sabha members and 130 Lok Sabha members under Article 324(5) read with Article 124(4) – accusing him of “unambiguous and unequivocal partisan misbehaviour” and “deliberate obstruction of justice” and acting under the “executive’s thumb”. Both notices were rejected by the Chairman and the Speaker with no reason given, as alleged by TMC leader Derek O’Brien.
CEC Gyanesh Kumar, on his part, in a press conference on August 17 had accused the Opposition of “spreading misinformation” regarding SIR. Congress general secretary K.C. Venugopal today in Bengaluru again alleged that 1.07 crore voters out of 5.54 crore in Karnataka have been deleted and notices issued to 43 lakh more, calling it unnatural.
The Election Commission has maintained that SIR is a routine exercise to clean electoral rolls and that due process is being followed, with tribunals to hear appeals.
Delhi Police barricaded the area outside Nirvachan Sadan to prevent the advocates from entering the premises. No untoward incident was reported.
