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Many meanings are being inferred from the disagreement of Election Commissioners Vivek Joshi and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu with Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
The opposition says that Gyanesh Kumar is taking decisions arbitrarily and the ruling BJP says that disagreement is very common in a 'vibrant democracy'.
The Election Commission has said in its official statement on the entire matter that whatever decisions are being taken are in accordance with the Constitution.
Disagreement of Election Commissioners with the Chief Election Commissioner is not a new thing but this time it is being considered unexpected. The process of SIR is going on across the country under the supervision of the three Election Commissioners. But according to the report of leading English newspaper Indian Express, Sandhu and Joshi have filed formal objections to the records at least 14 times in the last 10 months.
He says that many decisions and orders were taken and issued without his knowledge. On one of these days, such objections were lodged four times.
All three election commissioners were appointed under the 2023 law during the tenure of the Modi government. The selection committee for appointment included the Prime Minister, the Union Home Minister and the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha. Earlier, in the selection panel appointing election commissioners, instead of the Home Minister, there was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, but the Modi government had changed the rule and replaced the Chief Justice with the Home Minister.
This decision of Modi government was quite controversial. On Wednesday, in this matter, Supreme Court Justice Dipankar Dutta said that this decision of the government has sent a wrong message to the public.
When Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Gyanesh Kumar were appointed Election Commissioners in March 2024, Congress's Adhir Ranjan Choudhary, the opposition member in the committee, had registered his disagreement over the appointment process.
In February 2025, when Gyanesh Kumar was made the Chief Election Commissioner and Vivek Joshi was appointed as the Election Commissioner, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi had also registered his disagreement.
That is, the two officers Vivek Joshi and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, who were made election commissioners by the Modi government as per their choice, have raised serious questions on the decision of Gyanesh Kumar.
Who are Vivek Joshi and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu?
Just before becoming the Election Commissioner, Vivek Joshi was the Chief Secretary of Haryana, while Sukhbir Singh Sandhu had earlier served as the Chief Secretary of Uttarakhand.
Sandhu's tenure as Chief Secretary ended in January 2024 and he took charge at the Election Commission on March 15, 2024. When Joshi joined the Election Commission on 19 February 2025, he was the Chief Secretary of Haryana.
Dr. Vivek Joshi is a 1989 batch IAS officer of Haryana cadre. He studied mechanical engineering from IIT Roorkee (then University of Roorkee).
After this, he did Executive Master's degree in International Business from IIFT, Delhi and Master's degree and PhD in International Economics from Graduate Institute, Geneva.
Vivek Joshi's previous posts
This was his post just before he was appointed Chief Secretary and Election Commissioner of Haryana Government.
Secretary, Department of Personnel and Training, Government of India.
Secretary, Department of Financial Services, Government of India.
Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India.
Worked on various posts in Central Government ministries/departments related to textiles, women and child development and finance.
He was the Deputy Commissioner of Jind, Hisar and Panchkula districts in Haryana.
Was Divisional Commissioner of Ambala Division.
Was the Member Secretary of Haryana State Finance Commission.
Was a member of the board of Reserve Bank of India and State Bank of India.
Sukhbir Singh Sandhu
Dr. Sukhbir Singh Sandhu is a 1988 batch IAS officer of Uttarakhand cadre. Hailing from Punjab, Dr. Sukhbir Singh Sandhu has done MBBS from Government Medical College, Amritsar.
Previous posts of Sukhbir Singh Sandhu
Chief Secretary, Government of Uttarakhand, from July 2021 to January 2024, his last major post in the state government before joining the Election Commission.
Chairman of the National Highway Authority of India, from 2019 to 2021.
Was the Secretary of Lokpal of India for some time.
Additional Secretary in the Department of Higher Education, Government of India, handled the responsibilities of many institutions including IITs and IIMs.
Between 2007 and 2014, he was the Principal Secretary to four Chief Ministers belonging to three political parties.
In Uttarakhand and earlier in Punjab, apart from Uttar Pradesh, he held secretary level positions in departments related to infrastructure development, highways, PPP projects, urban development, power, industry and finance.
He was the Collector/District Magistrate of Haridwar, Gautam Buddha Nagar (Noida) and Udham Singh Nagar.
Why did Joshi and Sandhu write to the Cabinet Secretary?
According to the Indian Express report, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had written letters to different cabinet secretaries regarding the changes in their work. These changes were affecting the monitoring of the IT system related to electoral voter lists.
However, the Cabinet Secretary is the monitoring officer of the Election Commission. The report says that these letters appear to be extraordinary steps taken at the administrative level. The statutory method of resolving any dispute within the Commission is its decision, which is usually taken by consensus and, if necessary, by majority.
Under Article 324, the power to supervise, direct and control elections is vested in the Election Commission. The Commission includes the Chief Election Commissioner and the Election Commissioner. The Chief Election Commissioner is generally considered 'first among equal' and not a unilateral decision-making officer.
Section 18 of the 2023 Act, which relates to the Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioners, states:
As far as possible, the work of the Commission should be conducted with consensus.
If there is a difference of opinion among the members, the matter will be decided on the basis of majority opinion.
The Commission may determine its functioning and may distribute or allocate its work, but this must be done through unanimous decisions.
If Sandhu and Joshi felt that an order related to work allocation had been issued without their consent, their strongest formal remedy would normally have been to demand that the matter be formally placed before a three-member commission, record their disagreement in writing, and then seek a majority vote.
According to the Indian Express report, both of them lodged written objections and also sent a copy to the Chief Election Commissioner. The report also said that the three election commissioners had met on September 9, which was their first full meeting in four months.
What was Congress's objection to the appointment of Joshi and Sandhu?
The Congress's opposition was primarily about the process of appointment and not about the allegation that Dr. Sukhbir Singh Sandhu or Dr. Vivek Joshi were individually ineligible for the post.
The basic argument of the Congress was that the system of selection gives the Central Government an effective majority in the committee and the Chief Justice of India has been excluded from the Appointments Committee.
Appointment of Sukhbir Singh Sandhu
When Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Gyanesh Kumar were appointed Election Commissioners in March 2024, Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Choudhary was the opposition representative in the three-member selection committee. He had given a dissenting note.
His main objections were-
He had said that the list of 212 names was given only a day before the meeting, while the shortlist of the last six names was shared just 10 minutes before the decision of selection.
He said that this did not provide adequate opportunity for meaningful investigation of the shortlisted candidates.
He objected to the Appointments Act of 2023, in which the Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister was included in the selection committee instead of the Chief Justice of India.
Chaudhary's argument was that due to the presence of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet Minister nominated by him in the committee, the government gets a majority of 2-1 and it can select the candidate of its choice.
He had clarified that he was not calling Sandhu's appointment arbitrary; His objection was regarding procedural shortcomings and the structure of the selection system.
Vivek Joshi's appointment
In February 2025, when Vivek Joshi was appointed Election Commissioner, on the same day Gyanesh Kumar was made the Chief Election Commissioner. At that time, the leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi had given a dissent note.
Rahul Gandhi had written in his note, the committee took forward the process of appointments at a time when the hearing in the Supreme Court on the petitions challenging the Appointments Act of 2023 was scheduled on 19 February 2025.
Gandhi's argument was that the government should have postponed the appointment process until the court considered the validity of the law and the composition of the selection committee.
He described the decision as "hasty", "disrespectful" and "disrespectful" to the court and its constitutional institutions.
Congress said that the removal of the Chief Justice from the selection committee weakened the safeguards that maintain the independence of the Election Commission from the influence of the executive.
Congress cited the Supreme Court's Anup Baranwal decision of March 2023. In that decision, a provision was made for a selection committee consisting of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and the CJI as an interim arrangement until a law was made by the Parliament.
