New Delhi: At least fifteen well-known former civil servants and activists delivered a “letter of impeachment” to Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar on Monday (October 5). Their letter asks him to step down from his position in light of the serious allegations against him with respect to how the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists has been carried out since June 2025.The signatories include former Lieutenant-Governor of Delhi Najeeb Jung, former Union home secretary G.K. Pillai, former Intelligence Bureau special director Yashovardhan Azad and former secretary to the Union government Amitabha Pandey. The activist signatories include Anjali Bhardwaj, Amrita Johri and Aishe Ghosh.“By the time this exercise is over, the gap between the adult population and the electorate would be 15 crore or more, suggesting the largest ever ‘missing voters’ in human history,” they write of the SIR, adding, “You [Kumar] stand guilty of reckless disregard of the foundational principle of universal adult franchise,” they write.Their letter, described as a “Chargesheet and Notice of Impeachment” of Kumar, highlights seven recent episodes and instances of “proven misbehaviour or incapacity” that, they say, would entitle a CEC to impeachment under Article 325(4).The letter says the SIR was conducted without adequate discussion and did not record its proceedings as the rules dictate. Referring to recent reports published in the Indian Express, it says that two Election Commissioners objected to “decisions taken in the name of the commission without being placed before it constitute a fundamental abuse of constitutional authority”. The revelations in these reports have triggered demands for Kumar’s resignation and sparked a series of protests in Delhi, Mumbai and beyond. A larger national-level protest is being planned from October 10 onwards with the same demands.The “chargesheet” also says Kumar went ahead with modifying Form 6, which is meant to enrol new voters, though doing so was “unauthorised and illegal”. Since the ECI later restored the earlier Form 6, the letter says, it amounts to “powerful evidence” that the modification was unauthorised. The letter highlights that Form 6 was being illegally recommended to voters who have already voted, just because they could not clear the hurdles placed before them by the ECI’s SIR.The note is also critical of how technology was deployed by the ECI during the SIR. On September 26, the commission said it would set up a committee to review the functioning of its ECINET portal. The activists write that this amounts to another “admission” by the ECI – that it “deleted crores of voters from the electoral rolls” by using technology to “override” the limits within which it must legally function.“You can no longer be a referee in a game where you are widely perceived to be aligned with a player,” the letter says.“We, the people of India, therefore serve this Notice of Impeachment upon you. We hold that the acts set out above constitute proven misbehaviour within the meaning of Article 324(5) of the constitution and demand your removal from the office of the Chief Election Commissioner.”“Today, a distinguished delegation of former civil servants, activists and concerned citizens served a People’s Notice of Impeachment. The message was direct: constitutional authority demands constitutional accountability,” political activist and psephologist Yogendra Yadav, one of the signatories, wrote in a post on X.§The full text of the notice is below:‘CHARGESHEET AND NOTICE OF IMPEACHMENTShri Gyanesh Kumar,Chief Election Commissioner of IndiaNirvachan Sadan, New Delhi 110001The Election Commission of India bears an exceptional responsibility in our constitutional democracy. It is the custodian of the people’s franchise and the impartial referee on whom the credibility of elections ultimately rests. The office of Chief Election Commissioner, once occupied by public servants of the standing of Shri Sukumar Sen, has therefore acquired a stature far beyond that of an ordinary public office. Every incumbent of this office inherits that legacy and carries an onerous duty to preserve it.You have grievously failed that responsibility. We cannot but recall that your appointment was made by subverting the safeguards laid down by the Supreme Court for ensuring the independence of the Election Commission. Instead of strengthening the credibility of the Commission in these challenging times for Indian democracy, your conduct has brought the institution to a point where its constitutional authority and public confidence stand eroded.We therefore ask you to resign and avoid any further disgrace. Otherwise, We, the People of India, are compelled to serve upon you this Notice of Impeachment and demand your removal from office.Article 324(5) of the Constitution protects the Chief Election Commissioner from removal except on the grounds of “proved misbehaviour or incapacity”. The charges set out below concern not ordinary errors of judgment, incompetence or policy failures, but a sustained pattern of wilful disregard of law and constitutional duty, abuse of authority and conduct destructive of the integrity of India’s electoral democracy.CHARGE I: Subversion of the collective functioning of the Election CommissionYou have repeatedly exercised powers vested in the Election Commission of India without placing matters before the Commission for proper consideration and decision. The Special Intensive Revision (SIR), among other major decisions, was undertaken without adequate discussion, deliberation, consultation, rule-making or recorded proceedings. Two Election Commissioners are reported to have recorded objections to decisions taken without their knowledge, to meetings held in the absence of agenda and minutes.The Commission’s latest declaration that agendas would henceforth be circulated and minutes maintained, provides compelling evidence of a grave departure from the statutory and constitutional requirement that the Commission function as a collective body. Decisions taken in the name of the Commission without being placed before it constitute a fundamental abuse of constitutional authority.CHARGE II: Wilful and unauthorised alteration of Statutory Form 6You authorised and continued the use of a modified Form 6 for electoral-roll revision despite objections within the Commission that the alteration was “unauthorised and illegal”. The subsequent restoration of the original Form 6 constitutes powerful evidence that the earlier procedure lacked lawful authority.More gravely, the Commission requires citizens whose names had existed on electoral rolls but were wrongfully excluded, to lie in order to regain their voting rights. Under the original Form 6 they are expected to declare that they are applying for inclusion for the first time.They are additionally required to sign a declaration warning of criminal punishment for false statements. You are guilty for forcing crores of citizens to make a false declaration to correct an error for which the electoral authorities themselves were responsible.CHARGE III: Unlawful centralisation and manipulation of electoral-roll administrationYou authorised the deployment of ECINET in a manner that either undermined or displaced the statutory role of Electoral Registration Officers, who are the authorities legally entrusted with additions, deletions and corrections in electoral rolls. The system was introduced despite objections concerning its legality and functioning.The subsequent decision to constitute an expert committee to double check whether ECINET complies with the governing Acts and Rules amounts to an extraordinary admission that a system already used to delete crores of names on the electoral rolls had not been adequately established to be legally compliant.You thereby designed or oversaw technological mechanisms to override statutory authority, despite being put on notice.CHARGE IV: Unprecedented mass disenfranchisement through SIRYou conceived and implemented SIR on an unprecedented scale without adequate preparation, consultation, rules, training or effective mechanisms for speedy correction of wrongful exclusions. By shifting the onus of voter registration on the citizens and by reversing the presumption of citizenship, the SIR damaged the established mechanism for ensuring universal franchise.The process placed lakhs of inadequately trained Booth Level Officers under conflicting and frequently changing directions and subjected millions of citizens to burdens that foreseeably resulted in wrongful exclusion. The Commission’s response to RTI applications, stating that “the Commission has so far not taken any decision on initiating a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) across the country in 2025” raises valid apprehensions regarding the real origin of the decision-making authority behind the SIR.The SIR has failed all the three tests of electoral rolls integrity: completeness, accuracy and equity. We have already recorded 13.3 crore deletions in the pre-SIR rolls, unprecedented in the history of electoral democracies. By the time this exercise is over, the gap between adult population and the electorate would be 15 crores or more, suggesting largest ever “missing voters” in human history.The resulting deletions have disproportionately affected vulnerable citizens, especially the women, the poor, migrants, minorities and the elderly. The scale of potential disenfranchisement was neither an unforeseeable accident nor an incidental consequence: it was a foreseeable consequence of the manner in which the exercise was designed and executed. You stand guilty of reckless disregard of the foundational principle of universal adult franchise.CHARGE V: Conduct incompatible with independence and impartialityYou have repeatedly conducted yourself in a manner that creates a reasonable and substantial apprehension of political partisanship, thereby violating the constitutional expectation that the Election Commission must function without fear or favour. Your public interventions directed against opposition political leaders, your combative political rhetoric, and the cumulative pattern of decisions and actions surrounding SIR have seriously compromised the appearance and reality of institutional neutrality.You can no longer be a referee in a game where you are widely perceived to be aligned with a player.CHARGE VI: Repeated breach of statutory dutySection 32(1) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 makes it an offence for an election official, without reasonable cause, to commit an act or omission in breach of official duty in connection with the preparation or revision of electoral rolls. The unauthorised alteration of statutory forms, the circumvention of statutory Electoral Registration Officers, the use of dubious technological system, concealment of records, non-disclosure of relevant information and failure to rectify known violations together disclose a prima facie pattern of wilful breach of official duty.Your constitutional office cannot be used as a shield against the elementary legal obligations imposed upon those entrusted with the preparation of electoral rolls.The foregoing acts cannot be viewed as isolated administrative lapses. Taken together, they constitute a sustained pattern in which the constitutional authority entrusted to protect the people’s electoral sovereignty has been used in a manner that disregards legality, collegial decision-making, impartiality and the statutory rights of electors.The result has been large-scale disenfranchisement, erosion of public confidence and the weakening of the Election Commission’s institutional independence. By these acts and omissions, you have forfeited the moral and constitutional authority to continue as Chief Election Commissioner of India.We, the People of India, therefore serve this Notice of Impeachment upon you. We hold that the acts set out above constitute proved misbehaviour within the meaning of Article 324(5) of the Constitution and demand your removal from the office of Chief Election Commissioner.’The delegation consisted of:Najeeb Jung, IAS (Rtd) Ex LG, NCT of DelhiG.K. Pillai, IAS (Rtd) Ex Home Secretary, GOIAmitabha Pandey, IAS (Rtd) Ex Secy, GOIJayashree Mukherjee, IAS (Rtd)Ashok Sharma, IFS (Rtd) former AmbassadorYashovardhan Azad, Former Special Director IB and CICAshish Joshi, Former Civil ServantAnjaliAishe GhoshN. Sai BalajiDinesh SrirangarajanSandeep YadavAmrita JohriAnjali BhardwajYogendra YadavFor our full coverage on the SIR and the issues it has brought to citizens, click here.