'Not Questioning Judiciary. In Fact, We Turn to Courts When Every Mechanism Fails': 24 Opposition Parties to CJI

New Delhi: Twenty four opposition parties including those outside the INDIA bloc – the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), and one independent MP – have written a joint letter to Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and alleged that the electoral processes are being “manipulated” and “outcomes in multiple instances do not reflect the will of the people.”

The letter says that judges do not live in “ivory towers” and are aware of what is happening on the ground. The opposition leaders have urged institutions to function and said that democracies turn into "anarchies when institutional mechanisms fail completely” and “when all else fails, people still repose their trust in the judiciary. So when the judiciary fails to respond, it indicates a complete breakdown of the Republic.”

Letter follows bloc meeting

The Wire had reported earlier this week that the letter was sent to the CJI on Tuesday (June 30), following the INDIA bloc’s meeting held on June 8. The contents of the letter were made public today (July 3) and has been seen by The Wire. While the AAP and the DMK did not attend the meeting on June 8, they too have signed on the letter.

The letter says that the parties are expressing their grave concern to the CJI due to the "brazen biased conduct of the Election Commission of India, in particular the Chief Election Commissioner" and the "open, unabashed support of the BJP during the course of and in the outcome of electoral processes."

The letter refers to the Election Commission in selectively implementing the model code of conduct (MCC) and said that the on multiple occasions the poll body "maintained a stoic silence when openly toxic, communal statements contrary to the principles enunciated in the MCC, are routinely made by those in the BJP."

'Suspend SIR'

It refers to the conduct of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls which first started in Bihar in a bid to clean the electoral rolls, accompanied by the BJP's political narrative of weeding out alleged illegal infiltrators and says that even after the SIR, no figure of illegal foreigners has been provided. 

"Before embarking on the SIR there is nothing to show that the Commission had done any exercise to find the extent to which the electoral rolls in each state were polluted and why it was necessary to do this exercise for these elections and in such haste," the letter says.

"We write this letter to collectively express our concerns. We believe that recently conducted elections in Delhi, Haryana and Maharashtra were also manipulated. There is enough information provided to the Commission and in the public domain that calls for adopting electoral processes that instil confidence in the public," the letter says.

The opposition leaders have asked for the SIR to be suspended and be launched when assembly elections are at least five years away so that the poll body representatives can go for verification of voters, instead of a process of documentation which has never been adopted in the past.

Targeting of opposition

"We find, and it is a matter of grave concern, that the agencies of the government, in particular the CBI, the ED and the NIA, are used only to target those in opposition," the letter says.

"These agencies are also used for the purpose of manipulating the outcome of results in the elections, apart from bringing down elected governments."

The letter further says that democracies turn into "anarchies when institutional mechanisms fail completely."

"Therefore, it is the responsibility of all of us to ensure that people’s faith in institutions must endure. And for that, institutions must play their role," it says.

"We are not questioning the judiciary. In fact, we turn to the courts when every mechanism fails. When this too fails, it leaves open the question – who do we now turn to? We leave that question for you to ponder upon."

§

Read the full text of the letter below. 

28th June, 2026 

Esteemed Hon’ble Chief Justice of India, 

We would not have, under normal circumstances, written to you. Given the fact  that our democracy is in jeopardy, we have chosen this unusual path. 

It is only when democracy is a collaborative exercise that it can be sustained.  Only then our nation will realise its destined glory. 

Parliament, an essential pillar of democracy, enacts laws. These are tested on  the touchstone of their constitutionality by, perhaps, the most significant pillar of  democracy – our Judiciary. Then there is the media which questions the nature and  impact of these laws on the ground, which, in turn, paves the way for a collaborative  democratic process.  

The Executive is charged with the responsibility of implementing these laws in  their true spirit.  

The step that gives life to these institutions is the holding of elections, based on  adult franchise, constitutionally required to be free and fair. This fundamental  premise is to ensure that electoral outcomes for formation of governments at the  centre or in the states, reflect the true will of the people. When that process is, in one  way or the other, tainted, the outcome is suspect. The will of the people becomes the  victim of this perfidy.  

At the outset, we wish to make clear the spirit in which we write. This letter is  addressed to this Hon’ble Court, and through the Chief Justice of India to the  Companion Judges, as the institution in which the people of this country repose their  ultimate trust. It is not addressed to, nor intended for, any Judge who is or may  hereafter be seized of any of the matters referred to herein, and nothing we say is  meant to influence the decision of any cause pending before any court. Our sole  purpose is to strengthen, and never to weaken, public confidence in the institutions  of our democracy, and to place our concerns, in good faith, before the forum where  the citizens of India have always reposed their final trust. 

We all, representing like-minded political parties, firmly opposed to the BJP,  believe that the electoral process is being manipulated and outcomes in multiple  instances do not reflect the will of the people. There are several reasons for this. 

First, how the Election Commission (ECI) is constituted is and has always been  decided by the government in power. Prior to 2014, there were hardly any telling  instances, barring a few exceptions, when questions were raised about the integrity  of persons in the Commission. But since 2014, almost every appointment made by  the government has been of persons closely associated with it and seen to be doing  the bidding of the government, brazenly, to manipulate the outcome of election  results.  

It is in this context that the Constitution Bench of this Hon’ble Court in Anup  Baranwal Vs. Union of India emphasised the need for a more independent,  transparent appointment process. In the absence of legislation by Parliament this  Hon’ble Court had opined that till a law is framed by Parliament, the Chief Election  Commissioner shall be appointed by a Committee comprising the Prime Minister, the  Chief Justice of India and the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha. We do not  wish to go into the rationale for that decision. Parliament later made a law providing  for a committee comprising the Prime Minister, a Union Minister nominated by him,  and the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha. The legislation did away with the  presence of the Chief Justice of India as a Member of the committee thereby  controlling the appointment process. That law has been challenged and is pending  adjudication before this Hon’ble Court.  

The reason for our grave concern is the brazen biased conduct of the Election  Commission of India (ECI), in particular the Chief Election Commissioner. There has  been open, unabashed support of the BJP during the course of and in the outcome  of electoral processes. The Commission has not been evenhanded by choosing not  to take action when the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) is breached by the political  party in power- all this while targeting those in the opposition. On multiple occasions,  the Commission had maintained a stoic silence when openly toxic, communal  statements contrary to the principles enunciated in the MCC, are routinely made by  those in the BJP. 

The unkindest cut of all happened when the Election Commission and in  particular the Chief Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, chose to allegedly  clean up the electoral rolls in each state to ensure that they truly represent those  who are entitled to vote, as provided for in the Constitution and the provisions of the  Representation of People Act, 1951. The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process of  sanitising the electoral rolls, according to the Chief Election Commissioner, was  required to be done to ensure their integrity. But the result is quite the opposite. The  experiment of the SIR was first launched in Bihar. The political rhetoric seeking to  rationalise this process centered around the alleged infiltration of Bangladeshis into  the Bihar electoral rolls. Now that the Bihar Assembly elections are over, there is  absolutely no data to suggest that such an infiltration indeed took place nor has the  Election Commission made public any data with respect to the number of  Bangladeshis having illegally acquired the right to vote in India.  

This massive exercise just before the assembly elections, was ill-timed and its  faulty implementation a monumental disaster. This, despite the fact that electoral  rolls, after they were digitized (2002) were continuously revised and updated by the  Commission. But a de-novo revision, never attempted in the fashion adopted by the  Commission would ordinarily have required at least a year to do, without being  suspect. The documentation process, adopted for the first time, was inherently  exclusionary and politically motivated. Verification of voters based on filling forms  and production of documents, questioning citizenship, left voters disenfranchised.  Lakhs of voters did not possess the required documents. Many of them did not have  the capacity to fill forms and forward them as mandated. This was particularly true of  those who are poor, uneducated, including Dalits, Adivasis, members of the minority  community and migrant workers. There were instances, that the Commission was  aware of, where videos circulating on the social media showed booth level officers  themselves filling the forms by forging signatures, and in some instances, uploading  these forms without the consent of the voters. Even deceased persons were shown  to be submitting forms. There was complete lack of transparency and administrative  confusion in the implementation of this process exacerbated by the timeframe within  which it was required to be done. Instructions of the Commission were changed  midway from time to time. There was confusion even amongst election officials. 

The grievance redressal mechanism was inadequate and there was a massive  arbitrary deletion of names without proper notice. The alleged objective of the  exercise was to remove duplicate voters and the names of the deceased and  migrants from the voters lists. But the process, as implemented, lacked not just  transparency but was implemented in a manner unknown to all processes  undertaken in the past. The existing updated electoral rolls were used at the time of  the Lok Sabha elections (2024). Even in 2014, the then updated electoral rolls  reflected an outcome that none questioned. The whole process of the SIR, according  to us, was meant to favour the BJP. 

The situation became much, much worse when it came to the recently  concluded Assembly elections in West Bengal. It seemed that the Commission was  concerned only with the outcome of that election since it raised no real issues of  manipulation in other states like Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Assam where the SIR was  not implemented. It was apparent that the West Bengal Government was under  siege with the presence of 2 lakh 40 thousand CAPF personnel. To put this in  context, 3 lakh 50 thousand CAPF personnel were deployed for the entire Lok Sabha  election in 2024. There was also a massive deletion of names from the electoral  rolls, including those arbitrarily removed, under a never-used-before-category titled  ‘logical discrepancies’. This devious ploy alone left 27 lakh people without the right to  vote. This Hon’ble Court constituted Tribunals to dispose of the appeals where  names stood deleted. One of the 19 Tribunals hearing the appeals headed by  Justice T.S. Sivagnanam, found that of the 1777 names deleted for which appeals  were heard by him, 1717 were wrongly deleted. This means 96% of the names were  wrongly deleted. If the same proportion is applied on other pending appeals before  the 19 tribunals, it would mean that more than 25 lakh voters were unable to cast  their votes due to a process which was inherently flawed. Most of the deletions were  found to be in constituencies where the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) was  dominant. The SIR is an unusual process with which the ordinary voter is unfamiliar.  The requirement of filling forms, forwarding them and furnishing of documents in a  country where there is massive poverty and illiteracy is essentially exclusionary.  

Massive deletions, non-transparent processes, the unprecedented numbers of  CAPF personnel deployed, the nomination of two representatives of the Union 

government of their choice and the Returning Officer chosen by the blatantly biased  Commission at the counting centres, with no nominee of the AITC, made for a  partisan process and consequently suspect. The en masse transfer of 483 officials  including the then Chief Secretary, Home Secretary and others replaced by officers  posted by the Commission was an unusual exercise. Such extreme steps were not  taken in any election in the past. 

Before embarking on the SIR there is nothing to show that the Commission had  done any exercise to find the extent to which the electoral rolls in each state were  polluted and why it was necessary to do this exercise for these elections and in such  haste. Even many BLOs in West Bengal were deprived of their right to vote. 

We write this letter to collectively express our concerns. We believe that recently  conducted elections in Delhi, Haryana and Maharashtra were also manipulated.  There is enough information provided to the Commission and in the public domain  that calls for adopting electoral processes that instill confidence in the public. 

In light of what we have stated, we do expect the impending SIR process be  suspended and be launched at a time when the next Assembly election is at least  five years away so that representatives of the Commission can go to each house for  verification of voters, instead of a process of documentation which has never been  adopted in the past.  

The elections in other states are just a few months away, in 2027.  

Quite apart from the electoral rolls, serious questions are also being raised about  the process of electronic voting, and in particular about the role of electronic voting  machines. A transparent electoral process, in which every Indian has full confidence,  is essential to sustaining public trust in our democracy. We believe this is a matter  that warrants wider public discussion, including a serious consideration of restoring  ballot papers where appropriate.  

We find, and it is a matter of grave concern, that the agencies of the government,  in particular the CBI, the ED and the NIA, are used only to target those in opposition.  These agencies are also used for the purpose of manipulating the outcome of results  in the elections, apart from bringing down elected governments. 

Judges do not live in ivory towers. You too are aware of what is happening on the  ground. The legacy media is largely compromised, but there are many independent  platforms who are still speaking truth to power.  

We respect all institutions as we must. We honour them as we must. But when  institutions themselves become instruments of oppression, carry forward the agenda  of the government, then the future of our democracy is fraught with grave  consequences.  

When all else fails, people still repose their trust in the judiciary. So when the  judiciary fails to respond, it indicates a complete breakdown of the Republic.  

Democracies turn into anarchies when institutional mechanisms fail completely.  Therefore, it is the responsibility of all of us to ensure that people’s faith in institutions  must endure. And for that, institutions must play their role.  

We are not questioning the judiciary. In fact, we turn to the courts when every  mechanism fails. When this too fails, it leaves open the question - who do we now  turn to?  

We leave that question for you to ponder upon.  

Warm regards

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