Every rule, form and order change in the record, sourced line by line.
Of 38.31 lakh appeals before the West Bengal tribunals, 16.10 lakh sought deletion of electors whom judicial officers had kept on the roll; the Commission did not say who filed them. In August 2026 Election Commissioner Sandhu wrote asking who had authorised and who had actually filed appeals on the Commission's behalf, recording that neither he, Joshi nor the current West Bengal CEO had been told.
Sandhu and Joshi jointly set aside Garg's order as made without reason or justification, directing that the previous work allocation continue until the Commission reached consensus. The note went to Garg and was copied to the CEC. The three Commissioners then met on 9 September, their first full meeting in four months.
The Commission appointed Special Roll Observers for the SIR in eight states, to be present two days a week until final rolls in February 2026 and to meet parties, CEOs and DEOs.
On requests from their CEOs, the Commission extended enumeration in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat (draft 19 December), Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Andaman & Nicobar (draft 23 December) and Uttar Pradesh (draft 31 December 2025). Kerala's schedule had already been moved to a 23 December draft. Goa, Puducherry, Lakshadweep, Rajasthan and West Bengal kept the 16 December draft date.
On the Commission's recommendation, the Law Ministry notified the Conduct of Elections (Second Amendment) Rules, 2024 (S.O. 5517(E)). It inserted 'as specified in these rules' after 'papers' in Rule 93(2)(a), which narrowed public inspection and in effect excluded CCTV, webcasting and video records. Scroll reports the Commission proposed the change on 17 December, eight days after the High Court order, and the Gazette copy is digitally signed at 10:23 pm on 20 December.
A search committee headed by the Law Minister with two Secretary-rank members prepares a panel of five. Only serving or retired Secretary-rank officers 'of integrity' with election experience are eligible. The selection committee regulates its own procedure 'in a transparent manner' and may pick someone not on the panel.
No court may entertain or continue civil or criminal proceedings against a serving or former CEC or EC for anything done or said in, or purporting to be in, the discharge of official duty. The clause was added by government amendment in the Rajya Sabha; it was not in the bill as introduced.
Before 2024, Section 10 of the 1991 Act, inserted with effect from 1 October 1993, provided that the Commission allocate business only by unanimous decision, transact business unanimously as far as possible, and otherwise decide by majority. The 1991 Act also fixed a six-year term and pay equal to a Supreme Court judge, but was silent on how commissioners were chosen.
By 11 July 2026 the online Form 6 on ECINET, the statutory form for new voters, carried an inserted 'declaration form' section asking whether the applicant's own name or a parent's or grandparent's name was in the last SIR roll, with booth and serial numbers. It was not marked mandatory but the form could not be submitted without answering. The downloadable paper Form 6 did not include it, and no amendment to the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 had been notified. It applied in all SIR states except Bihar, and not in Assam.
The Commission told all CEOs to set up district helpdesks for the phase 3 SIR to explain timelines and documents, help electors find and link their last-SIR entries and fill forms, and assist migrants, the elderly and persons with disabilities. The letter said SIR had already been completed in 13 states/UTs.
The Commission ordered the third SIR phase in 19 states and UTs, again on the basis of the 24 June 2025 order, with qualifying dates of 1 July or 1 October 2026 and final rolls from 6 September to 23 December 2026. The order let people link themselves through their own or a relative's entry in the last intensive revision roll, and told EROs to issue notices after the draft to anyone who could not be linked or whose linking showed a discrepancy.
On 16 April 2026 Election Commissioner Sukhbir Singh Sandhu told senior officers that many communications were going out in the Commission's name without its approval and that all must now have it, citing the 2023 Act; the same day he recorded that the IT division had built new modules without informing him. On 24 April Vivek Joshi issued a similar direction citing Article 324 and the Act.
Following a Supreme Court order of 10 March 2026, the Commission notified 19 appellate tribunals, each a single retired High Court judge, to hear appeals against judicial officers' decisions. They began work on 13 April, days before the 23 and 29 April polls, and restored 1,607 electors in time to vote.
After a request from parties at a 27 January meeting, the Commission reportedly extended Uttar Pradesh's claims and objections period by a month to 6 March 2026, with disposal by 27 March and the final roll on 10 April 2026.
The Commission issued a letter on 31 January 2026 to implement the Supreme Court's 29 January directions on electors flagged for logical discrepancies. In Goa, lists were displayed and 649 electors responded; EROs found 97 eligible, but ECINET had no function to reverse the earlier flag before the final roll.
Amid a TMC-BJP dispute in West Bengal over deletion requests, the Commission reportedly clarified that any registered elector of a constituency could submit any number of Form 7 objections, and that more than five from one person triggers mandatory ERO scrutiny.
The Commission directed CEOs of the 12 phase 2 states/UTs to hand booth-wise lists of electors marked absent, shifted or dead/duplicate (ASD) to party booth agents before draft publication, and to post them on CEO and DEO websites in EPIC-searchable form after the draft.
The Commission pushed every phase 2 date back a week: enumeration to 11 December, draft rolls on 16 December 2025, claims to 15 January, notices and hearings to 7 February, and final rolls on 14 February 2026.
The Commission directed a Special Revision of Assam's rolls with 1 January 2026 as the qualifying date, based on house-to-house verification by BLOs rather than SIR enumeration forms. The integrated draft roll was due on 27 December 2025 and the final roll on 10 February 2026.
The Commission changed its booth level agent rule: a party's agent for a roll part should normally be an elector of that part, but if none is available the party may appoint any elector of the same Assembly constituency. Agents are expected to check the draft roll for dead or shifted entries. The Manual on Electoral Rolls 2023 was amended to match.
The phase 2 enumeration and declaration forms added a block for the elector's own entry, or a relative's entry, in the roll of the last intensive revision (constituency, part and serial number), with a BLO undertaking that it had been verified. The document list grew to 13 items: the 11 original documents, Aadhaar under the 9 September 2025 letter, and an extract of the Bihar SIR roll.
The Commission extended the SIR to 12 states and UTs covering about 51 crore electors, citing its 24 June 2025 order as having ordered SIR 'in all the States/UTs'. It kept the Bihar guidelines with changes: no documents at enumeration, electors to link themselves to the last intensive revision roll, and notices after the draft only to those who could not be linked. Final rolls were due on 7 February 2026.
The Commission said that although any elector of a constituency may file Form 7 online to seek deletion of an entry, submission does not delete it; under the 1960 Rules no name is deleted without notice and a hearing. It cited Aland (Karnataka), where 5,994 of 6,018 online deletion requests were rejected, and Rajura (Maharashtra), where 6,861 of 7,792 addition requests were rejected.
A day after the Supreme Court's order, the Commission told the CEO Bihar that Aadhaar must be accepted as the 12th document alongside the 11 listed, as proof of identity but not of citizenship. It warned that refusal to accept Aadhaar would be treated with the utmost seriousness. Authorities could still verify an Aadhaar card's genuineness.
Before the Supreme Court, the Commission stated that claims, objections and corrections could still be filed after 1 September 2025 and would be considered until the last date of nominations, with all changes integrated into the final roll. The court then directed legal services authorities to deploy para-legal volunteers to help voters file online.
The Supreme Court impleaded 12 recognised parties and told them to instruct their booth agents to help excluded voters file claims with any of the 11 documents or Aadhaar. The Commission conveyed this to the CEO Bihar by letter dated 23 August 2025.
The Supreme Court directed the Commission to publish the roughly 65 lakh names left out of the Bihar draft roll with reasons, and allowed those excluded to file claims with a copy of their Aadhaar card. The Commission conveyed the direction to the CEO Bihar by a letter of the same date.
The Commission doubled the annual remuneration of Booth Level Officers from Rs 6,000 to Rs 12,000 and raised BLO supervisors' pay, and gave EROs and AEROs an honorarium for the first time. It also noted a special Rs 6,000 SIR incentive for BLOs.
Amid reports that the process had been relaxed, the Commission said it was following the 24 June instructions without change. It said documents could be submitted any time before 25 July, and that EROs could collect deficient documents from those on the draft roll during the claims and objections period.
The Commission uploaded the 2003 Bihar electoral roll (4.96 crore electors) and said those on it only had to verify their entry and return the enumeration form. It added that a person not on the 2003 roll could use a parent's 2003 entry instead of documents for that parent.
From 24 June 2025, anyone in Bihar applying to be a new elector on Form 6, or shifting in from another state on Form 8, also had to file a Declaration Form (Annexure D) stating their birth-date tier and attaching documents from the SIR list. The requirement was written into the SIR order and guidelines, not into the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, where Form 6 is prescribed. Pending Form 6 applications also had to be supplemented with the declaration.
The Bihar SIR forms set out what an elector not on the 2003 roll had to prove, by date of birth: born before 1 July 1987, a document for self; born 1 July 1987 to 2 December 2004, documents for self and one parent; born after 2 December 2004, documents for self and both parents. An 'indicative (not exhaustive)' list of 11 documents was attached. Aadhaar appeared only as an optional field on the enumeration form and was not in the document list; the voter ID card (EPIC) and ration card were also not listed.
The Commission ordered a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls of Bihar, with enumeration forms for every existing elector and a fresh draft roll limited to those who returned a form. The accompanying order said the Commission had decided to begin SIR in the entire country, starting with Bihar because its Assembly election was due. It set a schedule ending in final publication on 30 September 2025.
In a letter to state chief electoral officers, the Commission said CCTV, webcasting and photographic records of the election process will be kept for 45 days and may be destroyed if no election petition is filed. It cited misuse of such content by non-contestants to spread misinformation, and said the law does not require the recordings, which serve as an internal management tool.
The Commission may regulate its procedure and allocate business among the CEC and ECs only by unanimous decision. All other business is to be transacted unanimously as far as possible, and when members differ, the majority opinion decides. The CEC has no casting or overriding vote.
The President appoints the CEC and ECs on the recommendation of a selection committee: the Prime Minister (chair), the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha (or leader of the largest opposition party), and a Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister. An appointment is not invalid because of a vacancy or defect in the committee. This replaced the Chief Justice of India, whom the Supreme Court had placed on the interim committee.
Members serve six years or until 65, cannot be reappointed, and an EC elevated to CEC is capped at six years in total. Salary equals a Supreme Court judge's. The CEC can be removed only like a Supreme Court judge; ECs only on the CEC's recommendation.
The Commission appointed Special Roll Observers for the SIR in eight states, to be present two days a week until final rolls in February 2026 and to meet parties, CEOs and DEOs.
