Former Supreme Court judge V Gopala Gowda said on Thursday that the May 27 judgment upholding the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision should be recalled. He called the ruling "illegal, unconstitutional and undemocratic." Meanwhile, 42 retired judges defended the exercise as lawful, claiming the opposition’s attack lacked any real evidence.
Former Supreme Court judge V Gopala Gowda on Thursday said the Supreme Court’s May 27 judgment upholding the constitutional validity of the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) should be recalled, calling it "illegal, unconstitutional and undemocratic".
He also said the top court should call for all records from the Election Commission to find out whether the decision on SIR was taken by the full Commission with the concurrence and approval of a majority of Election Commissioners. His remarks came on a day when a group of 42 retired judges defended the SIR as a "lawful exercise" and said in an open letter to the "people of India" that they felt compelled to speak because "silence is no longer a neutral choice" and that the opposition’s attack on the EC was a "campaign without evidence".
Speaking at Cockroach Janata Party’s protest in Bengaluru for a "People’s Tribunal" and a chappal protest against voter deletions during the electoral roll revision, Justice Gowda said the "May 27 judgement of the Supreme Court upholding the constitutional validity of SIR is illegal, unconstitutional and undemocratic and must be recalled". He also said, "My friends, 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. I don’t want to disclose their names but people will teach them a lesson. The intellectuals, laureates, the youth, the students all are supporting the mainstream struggle which is being carried out by you (CJP) in the entire nation."
Justice Gowda also defended Supreme Court judge Ujjal Bhuyan’s recent remarks, saying there was no judicial impropriety in a sitting apex court judge speaking against mass disenfranchisement of voters. He said Justice Bhuyan, as a judge, was entitled to speak on a constitutional issue. On Sunday, Justice Bhuyan had said any process that disenfranchises millions of Indian citizens was intrinsically arbitrary and a negation of the constitutional order, and that no amount of "whataboutery" could justify it.
On May 27, in a major victory for the Election Commission, the Supreme Court upheld its power to conduct the SIR of voter rolls and said the exercise "breathes life" into the constitutional mandate for fair elections. The day’s developments saw Justice Gowda seek a recall of that ruling and scrutiny of the EC’s records, even as 42 retired judges backed the revision process as lawful.