Notices to Remove CEC Gyanesh Kumar Rejected in April; Article 324(5) Sets the Test

The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) heads the Election Commission of India, and the Constitution gives that office a protection that other election officials do not have. Under Article 324, clause (5), the CEC can be removed only in the same manner and on the same grounds as a Supreme Court judge. The Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023 repeats that rule and regulates the appointment, conditions of service and term of office of election commissioners.

Opposition members of Parliament sought the removal of the current CEC, Gyanesh Kumar, with notices in both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. The Lok Sabha Speaker, Om Birla, and the Rajya Sabha Chairman, C.P. Radhakrishnan, rejected the notices in early April 2026. The bulletins announcing the decisions gave no detailed reasons, and the steps that follow admission were never reached.

What Article 324(5) Provides

Article 324(5) makes the conditions of service and tenure of election commissioners subject to any law Parliament makes. Where Parliament has not legislated, the President sets them by rule. The clause covers Regional Commissioners as well as Election Commissioners.

The clause then gives the CEC a specific protection. The office cannot be removed except in the same manner and on the same grounds as a Supreme Court judge, and the CEC's service conditions cannot be worsened after appointment.

Outlook India's explainer on the process states that the grounds are limited to proved misbehaviour or incapacity, and that mere allegations are not enough.

The clause therefore makes the judges' procedure the reference point for the CEC's removal, rather than a separate route written for election commissioners.

How Section 11 of the 2023 Law Restates the Rule

The 2023 Act received presidential assent on 28 December 2023 and came into force on 2 January 2024, according to the summary of the Act on Wikipedia.

Section 11 repeats the protection. It says the CEC shall not be removed "in like manner" and on the same grounds as a Supreme Court judge. The section does not set out the steps itself. It points to the procedure for judges, so any removal of the CEC runs through that procedure.

Wikipedia's summary says the removal procedure was carried over from the 1991 legislation that the 2023 Act replaced. The same section allows any election commissioner to resign by writing addressed to the President.

The Steps for Removing the CEC

Outlook's explainer lists the steps. A removal notice must carry at least 100 signatures of Lok Sabha members or 50 signatures of Rajya Sabha members.

The presiding officer, the Speaker in the Lok Sabha or the Chairman in the Rajya Sabha, then decides whether to admit the motion. Outlook describes that decision as discretionary.

An admitted motion goes to a three-member inquiry committee made up of a sitting Supreme Court judge, a Chief Justice of a High Court and a distinguished jurist.

Both Houses must then pass the motion separately by a special majority, which Outlook defines as a majority of the total membership and two-thirds of the members present and voting. Outlook says this threshold keeps removal from being decided by a simple parliamentary majority, which protects electoral independence.

How Other Election Commissioners Are Protected Differently

Other Election Commissioners, and Regional Commissioners, can be removed only on the recommendation of the CEC. Outlook says they can be removed by the President, but only on the CEC's recommendation. The constitutional text sets no such recommendation for the CEC's own removal.

Outlook calls the difference an asymmetry, since the commissioners function as equals in decision-making. The CEC therefore has the judges' standard, while the other commissioners depend on the CEC's recommendation.

Section 11 of the 2023 law repeats both rules, so the same split appears in the statute as in the Constitution.

Both presiding officers rejected the notices, and the bulletins gave no detailed reasons.

The Notices and the Presiding Officers' Decision

Scroll reports that the notices carried 63 signatures from Rajya Sabha members and 130 from Lok Sabha members. Both counts exceed the 50 and 100 signature thresholds in Outlook's explainer.

Outlook says both notices were rejected at the admission stage in April 2026. Scroll reports that the presiding officers cited their powers under Section 3 of the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968. The bulletins were issued on Monday, Scroll reports, and both Scroll's article and All India Radio's item are dated 7 April 2026.

The notice alleged a "partisan attitude" by the CEC, All India Radio reports. The bulletins said each presiding officer had made a "careful and objective assessment" of the matters before them, but they gave no detailed explanation of the decision, Scroll reports.

Because the notices were rejected at admission, the inquiry committee and the votes in both Houses did not come into play.

The Kerala Resolution and Where Things Stand

On 12 October 2026, the Kerala Legislative Assembly passed a resolution seeking the CEC's removal, Outlook India reports. The resolution links the demand to the special intensive revision of electoral rolls.

The resolution asks for voting rights to be restored to eligible voters who, it says, were wrongly excluded during that revision. It asks for the committee that selects election commissioners to be reconstituted to include the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and the Chief Justice of India.

Wikipedia's summary of the 2023 Act says it replaced the Chief Justice of India on that committee with a Cabinet minister nominated by the Prime Minister, so the resolution's request would reverse that change.

Outlook describes the resolution as a political demand that does not itself remove the CEC from office, and says it may be the first such resolution in the country.

The April rejections are the only decision on the notices in the reports cited here. A fresh removal effort was reported in September following allegations concerning the ECI's handling of SIR, Outlook India reports. The route for any future removal remains the one set out in Article 324(5) and Section 11 of the 2023 law.