Lokniti-CSDS psephologist Sanjay Kumar gets Supreme Court’s protection

On 25 August, Monday, the Supreme Court issued an order preventing the arrest of psephologist Sanjay Kumar, who is facing two FIRs filed by the Election Commission of India. These FIRs allege that Kumar spread false information about Maharashtra’s electoral rolls on social media.

The bench, led by Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai and Justice N.V. Anjaria, considered arguments from senior advocate Vivek Tankha and advocate Sumeer Sodhi, who pointed out that Kumar took down the disputed posts from X and issued a public apology, yet FIRs were still registered against him.

“He deleted and apologised immediately. Even then two FIRs have been lodged,” Tankha stated, urging the court to not only protect Kumar from arrest but to dismiss the FIRs altogether.

“Issue notice. In the meantime, there shall be no coercive action,” declared the Chief Justice.

In his petition, Kumar named the Maharashtra government, the state’s director general of police, and others — including complainants Pravin Shekhar Tadvi and Mahesh Vinayak Kuldivar — who were said to be working at the Election Commission’s behest.

Sanjay Kumar, who serves as co-director of Lokniti at CSDS, approached the Supreme Court after FIRs were registered against him in Maharashtra. He is accused in these FIRs of circulating inaccurate information about Maharashtra’s voter rolls through posts on X.

His plea argued that the FIRs represent an abuse of legal process and were designed to harass him for what was, at worst, an honest mistake.

On 17 August, Kumar posted messages comparing electoral data for various Maharashtra constituencies. A technical error by his associate caused the data to be misaligned, leading him to suggest inconsistencies in the voter lists.

He claimed that the number of registered voters in Nashik West and Hingna had increased by 47 per cent and 43 per cent, respectively, between last year’s Lok Sabha polls and Maharashtra’s current elections. He also reported declines of 38 per cent and 36 per cent in Ramtek and Devlali’s voter numbers, respectively.

“I sincerely apologise for the tweets posted regarding Maharashtra elections. Error occurred while comparing data of 2024 LS and 2024 AS. The data in row was misread by our Data team. The tweet has since been removed. I had no intention of dispersing any form of misinformation,” Kumar posted on X after deleting his tweets.

He was charged at Sarakarvada police station in Nashik and Ramtek police station in Nagpur under sections of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita, including those relating to obstruction of public duty, false representation, and misleading public statements.

The petition sought the quashing of these FIRs, as well as protection against any future cases related to his social media activity on August 17, which involved inaccurate statistical comparisons regarding voter lists.

Kumar’s plea noted the absence of mens rea — the intent to commit a crime — in his actions, arguing that he had no wish to mislead and acted promptly to correct the mistake.

Notably, many BJP supporters — and apparently also ECI supporters — had been belligerent in their demand that charges by filed against Kumar, and also relied upon his retraction to claim that the INDIA bloc’s recent campaign against 'Vote chori' was thereby discredited as well.

'Mistakenly', they seemed to believe — or at least implied their belief — that the data presented at the start of the campaign in a press conference by Rahul Gandhi, leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, and that shared repeatedly earlier by INDIA bloc leaders of an unusual inflation in Maharashtra's voter list during the 2024 assembly elections was based on this Lokniti-CSDS (mis)information.

In fact, the Congress had claimed the allegations were based on its own internal review of the Maharashtra electoral rolls based on the ECI's own data to find that the 'surge' exceeded practically the whole statewide population. Other Maharashtra parties such as the Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP) were also aligned with the same.

With PTI inputs