The Supreme Court's May 27 verdict, which cleared the Election Commission to proceed with its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls, faced a scathing rebuke from former Justice V. Gopala Gowda. Speaking at a protest in Bengaluru, Gowda did not mince words. He demanded the top court recall its own decision, labeling the ruling "illegal, unconstitutional and undemocratic."
Gowda, addressing a gathering of the Cockroach Janata Party, argued that the judiciary must scrutinize the internal workings of the Election Commission. He urged the apex court to demand all records from the EC to verify if the SIR decision was taken unanimously by the Full Commission with the concurrence of a majority of Election Commissioners. "78 years of independent India the democracy is butchered and murdered at the hands of the CEC with the support of the people who are at the helm of affairs of government of India," Gowda said, refusing to name names but implying high-level political interference.
The former judge’s comments landed on a day of intense judicial friction. A group of 42 retired Supreme Court judges released an open letter to the "people of India" defending the SIR as a "lawful exercise." They argued that silence was "no longer a neutral choice" and dismissed opposition allegations as a "campaign without evidence." The split highlights a deepening divide over the legitimacy of the voter roll revision process.
Gowda also waded into a separate controversy involving sitting Supreme Court Justice Ujjal Bhuyan, who recently criticized mass voter disenfranchisement as "intrinsically arbitrary." Gowda defended Bhuyan, stating he committed no judicial impropriety by commenting on a constitutional issue. Bhuyan had noted that no amount of "whataboutery" justifies a process that strips millions of citizens of their constitutional right to vote.
The Supreme Court's May 27 ruling had delivered a significant victory to the Election Commission, stating that the SIR "breathes life" into the constitutional mandate for fair elections. With the former judge calling for a recall and 42 peers defending the status quo, the legal battle over who gets to vote in India's next election is likely to intensify in the coming weeks.