The October 10  Jantar Mantar protest call against the Special Intensive Revision  of electoral rolls that the youth-led Cockroach Janata Party (CJP)  announced has led to an unprecedented response from the Modi  government. 

The Delhi Police have denied permission for the Jantar Mantar gathering, imposed prohibitory orders in New Delhi district, and asked the Delhi Metro to close or restrict entry and exit at dozens of stations and to reduce frequency.  Mass cancellations of trains into New Delhi have also been reported, and organisers alleged large-scale detentions of potential participants.  

Internet services were suspended around Jantar Mantar and traffic restrictions put in place across the capital and out-station traffic into Delhi has been curtailed.  The bitter social media quip is 'Delhi has become Kashmir.'

These are unprecedented steps  and the number of security personnel deployed in Delhi - reported to be over 40,000 -  is indicative of the draconian measures being resorted to  by the state.  Against this backdrop, the intervention of a group of retired civil servants  is to be commended.

For and Against

 On October 7, the Constitutional Conduct Group (CCG) comprising  98 former civil servants including former  Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa, former Home Secretary G.K. Pillai and former Delhi Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung   issued a letter  in which they appealed to serving civil servants to abide by the Constitution in discharging their official duties.  The retired senior civil servants  exhorted their younger colleagues to  go by the  law in letter and spirit, even at personal inconvenience.

Their charge: the SIR has been converted from routine revision into a measure that shifts the burden of proving citizenship onto the voter, introduces lineage, and has created panic. The EC has removed  13 crore (130 million) plus names from the electoral rolls  since June 2025.

Within 24 hours came a counter, widely reported as 42 retired civil servants, but in fact 42 former judges,  including former SC Justices Hemant Gupta and Pankaj Mithal. Their response titled ‘In Defence of Our Constitutional Institutions’   defends the actions of  the EC and SIR as lawful.  

Its argument: institutions should not be called thieves and puppets from public platforms; allegations of vote-chori (theft) are made without sworn declarations; trust is the currency of democracy.

Both groups invoke the Constitution but on substance, they are not equal.

And now a third  voice has entered the debate, one that directly undercuts the position taken by the  42 retired judges.

Judges who Disagree 

On October 2, the Lawyers Association for Constitution (LAFC) announced a five-member Independent Commission of former judges to examine the constitutional validity, methodology and impact of SIR.

It is chaired by Justice Madan B. Lokur, former Supreme Court judge, and includes former SC judge Justice A.K. Patnaik, former Chief Justice of J&K High Court Justice Badar Durrez Ahmed, and former High Court judges Justices Rekha Sharma and Anjana Prakash. The panel will hold public hearings across India, collect testimony from affected citizens, analyse roll data, and report by December 2026.

Senior lawyers including Kapil Sibal, Prashant Bhushan, Raju Ramachandran and Vrinda Grover will assist the panel. This is a significant intervention, for these luminaries are  not political activists, but concerned citizens who are responding to the unusual  political turbulence in the country.

Justice Lokur was the senior most judge of the Supreme Court till December 2018, known for his landmark judgements, and is widely respected for his citizen rights jurisprudence.

In an interview with DeKoder this week, Justice Lokur made two observations that should be read as a direct rebuttal to the 42-judge letter.

First: "The Election Commission is not all-powerful." He rejected the idea that the EC's decision under Article 324 is beyond question. The EC is a constitutional body, but its exercise must satisfy proportionality, rational nexus, and procedural safeguards  - exactly what the Supreme Court itself said on May 27 when it upheld SIR in principle but warned that exclusion must not be arbitrary.

Second, on the Supreme Court's own handling:  Lokur called it "a very unfortunate comment that if you can't vote this time, maybe you can vote next time." He was referring to oral observations from the Bench during SIR hearings that a voter deleted now could vote later after appeal.

For a daily-wage worker or a migrant woman, the right to vote lost this election is not restored by a promise for 2029.

Third, on protest Lokur said  : "Not allowing protests against the Election Commission in Delhi is a clear violation of the fundamental right to protest peacefully." He added  that if the Supreme Court can take suo motu cognisance of stray dog bites, it can take cognisance of why people are not being allowed to protest peacefully at Jantar Mantar -  an issue of national importance.

Justice Lokur  is not alone. As many as 18 retired judges that  include  Justices  Kurien Joseph,  J. Chelameswar,  A.K. Patnaik,  Abhay Oka and  Vikramjit Sen ; as also former High Court Chief Justices S. Muralidhar, Govind Mathur, Sanjib Banerjee and Anjana Prakash have at different times warned that "prejudicial misinterpretation" of Supreme Court judgments by high political functionaries has a chilling effect on judicial independence.

Justice A.P. Shah, former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court, has separately questioned the opacity around Form 6 changes and ECINET, the new online portal for rolls.

In short, the 42 former judges say: trust institutions, go to court. The 5-member Lokur panel and other senior retired judges say: we went to court, and the court upheld power but left the manner of exercise unexamined; we are now compelled to examine it as citizens.

Why That Matters 

The Lokur panel says it will examine precisely what the CCG summarised and what civil society data work - notably The Decoder  has tabulated.

In West Bengal: 7.66 crore electors before SIR with gender ratio 968-969.  After SIR, draft rolls, 6.77 crore - 90.8 lakh deleted, or 11.9% of the electorate. Over 53.6% of deletions are women - nearly 4 lakh more women than men.

In over 850 polling stations, more than 75% deletions are of women and the gender ratio fell to 956, lowest in 10-13 years. 

Why women in such large numbers? SIR demands school certificates, government job proof, or linkage to 2002 rolls. Rural, married migrant women who change name and address after marriage often lack those. West Bengal leads in child marriage. The process thus has disparate impact.

Nationally, the  Indian Express found over 13 crore names struck from draft rolls across 30 states. Delhi: 79.2 lakh of 1.45 crore - over half  deleted or served notices. Bengal: 1.31 crore flagged for "logical discrepancy", which is 17% of the electorate.

In Delhi at 639 booths more than half the voters were deleted. As of September 18, the EC told  the Supreme Court  that 27.16 lakh voters were deleted in Bengal after adjudication ;  38.2 lakh appeals filed and  only 1.02 lakh disposed. It is estimated that at the current pace, it would take  12 years to clear the backlog.

And crucially, the  Indian Express report  revealed that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had objected 14 times   in 10 months to record that decisions were taken in the Commission's name without their knowledge. This included the crucial  Form 6 change and deletions - raising the question whether the Full Commission decided the SIR process  at all. In its response, the EC maintains that all decisions were taken by consensus.

The 42-judge letter that supports the EC does not address any of these contradictions. It argues for the primacy of institutional trust, while the Lokur panel argues that institutional  credibility is based on accountability which requires evidence.

Upholding Electoral Integrity 

If the government and EC are confident, the answer is not a counter-letter but transparent data: a district-wise, gender-wise audit of deletions, restorations, reasons – all details to be placed on affidavit, as Lokur panel demands.

If the opposition is confident of  mass selective exclusion, its answer must be sworn evidence before that panel and before the Supreme Court – and go beyond slogans. This would be more Gandhian.

On balance, the CCG plus the Lokur Commission's critical observations have greater constitutional merit because they ask not whether revision can be done, but how -  and whether a single eligible voter can be dismissively told to wait for the next election.

Gandhi  objected to such electoral manipulation in 1896. The Modi government must prove its fidelity to electoral integrity in 2026.  History will bear witness.

(The writer is an Indian Navy veteran and a commentator on public affairs. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at cudayb@gmail.com)