Published Oct 09, 2026 | 1:18 PM ⚊ Updated Oct 09, 2026 | 1:18 PM
Former Supreme Court judge Justice V Gopala Gowda. (Supreme Court of India website)
Former Supreme Court judge Justice V Gopala Gowda has demanded that the Supreme Court recall its May 2026 judgment upholding the Election Commission of India’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
“The Supreme Court’s judgment delivered on May 27, 2026, is illegal, unconstitutional and undemocratic. That judgment must be recalled,” he said, while attending the Cockroach Janta Party’s protest against Gyanesh Kumar at Bengaluru’s Freedom Park.
“Democracy has been butchered and murdered at the hands of the Chief Election Commissioner with the support of the people who are at the helm of affairs of the government of India,” he added.
Justice Gowda later told Live Law that, in his opinion, the Election Commission had perpetrated a “fraud” on the Supreme Court by withholding information about how decisions behind the controversial voter roll revision were taken.
He cited an investigation by The Indian Express to underline that two Election Commissioners, Dr Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Dr Vivek Joshi, had raised grave objections to SIR on 14 occasions in the past 10 months but had been overruled.
Justice Gowda argued that the dissent notes of the two Commissioners had been hidden from the Supreme Court. The apex court must now take suo motu cognisance of the matter and call for records directly from the Election Commission to see how the SIR decisions had been taken.
“Illegality and unconstitutionality are writ large on the (SIR) judgment,” Justice Gowda emphasised, while also slamming the Election Commission for its September 26 press release, which attempted to portray the modified Form 6, with an additional question, as having been greenlit by the SC.
“Any modified Form 6 has not been approved by us. Let’s be clear. When the record is produced, we would like to see who has modified,” Supreme Court Chief Justice Surya Kant had clarified while hearing a petition seeking the prosecution of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on October 5.
The former judge also came out in support of sitting Supreme Court judge Justice Ujjal Bhuyan, who was recently criticised by former Chief Justice of India BR Gavai for lashing out against mass voter disenfranchisement.
Justice Gowda maintained there was nothing wrong with what Justice Bhuyan said.
“What is the impropriety in speaking about constitutional rights to law students?” Justice Gowda was quoted as asking.
“If any process results in disenfranchising millions and millions of Indian citizens, making them second-class citizens in their own country in the sense of being citizens without voting rights, such a process is intrinsically arbitrary. No amount of whataboutery can justify it,” Justice Bhuyan had said while delivering the valedictory address at the 19th NALSAR-Justice BR Sawhney Memorial Moot Court Competition at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad.
“It strikes at the very heart of the Constitution and I would go to the extent of saying that it is a negation of the constitutional order which we have adopted under the Constitution of India,” the sitting judge had gone on to say, terming such a process violative of Article 326 and Article 14 of the Constitution of India.
“No authority can do it; no court can condone it. No one is above the Constitution,” Justice Bhuyan had underlined.
Also Read:
Indira Gandhi, Narendra Modi and the march of folly: The same mistake, fifty years apart
Rahul Gandhi, the street fighter is the Leader of Opposition India needs today
(Edited by R Rajesh Kumar.)
