Prayer for early listing of Rahul Gandhi and other leaders’ petition against EC

• The 14 defects flagged by the Supreme Court Registry are learnt to have been corrected

• The defects included a Rs 220 shortfall in court fees, an illegible copy of Congress president’s identity card and nine of the eleven original petitioners not filing separate vakalatnamas

• Defects are routinely flagged by the Registry and even petitions filed on behalf of Government of India are often delayed due to defects flagged

A section of the media on Tuesday went into a tizzy following reports that the Supreme Court registry had flagged 14 ‘defects’ in the petition filed on behalf of Rahul Gandhi and 10 other INDIA bloc leaders. A senior editor of CNN News 18 tweeted, “14 procedural lapses; and the petition couldn’t be accepted at the Supreme Court of the OPP parties …what kind of shoddy preparation was this!” and quickly prompted several lawyers and court reporters to school her.

“Journalists who cover courts know the concept of ‘defects’, ‘curing’ and ‘refilling’, responded Arvind Gunasekar, who also provided two screenshots of recent petitions filed by the Union government which were flagged for ‘defects’. Should one then call the Government of India shoddy and incompetent’, he asked. Other lawyers too jumped in to point out that procedural defects are routinely flagged by the Registry, sometimes for genuine reasons and sometimes to delay the hearing or harass the petitioners and their lawyers.

Other lawyers too pointed out that objections by the registry are extremely common in the Supreme Court. Lawyers practicing in the Supreme Court in fact expect that a fresh petition will attract some procedural defects during scrutiny by the Registry before it is registered and listed. The Registry examines compliance with the Supreme Court Rules, filing formats, court fees, affidavits, annexures, vakalatnamas, limitation calculations, translations, and other procedural requirements.

Under Order VIII Rule 6 of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013, petitions in which defects are found, the Registrar may allow time to rectify them. The time given for making corrections ordinarily do not exceed a few weeks although in the case of the Government of India, in the two cases in which defects were flagged and have been cited by Gunasekar, as many as 90 days have been given to correct the defects. If defects are not cured within the permitted period, the Registrar may decline to register the document.

The 14 defects flagged in the petition filed by Rahul Gandhi include defects like missing or illegible pages, court-fee shortfall of Rs 220, unsigned or missing authorisations, unclear copies of documents and allegedly incomplete supporting documents and digital records. The Registry also flagged that after naming the Election Commission of India as the first respondent, the petition also names the other two election commissioners, S.S. Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, who together constitute the commission with the CEC, as second and third respondents.

These objections do not reflect any view on the merits of the case. However, until the defects are cured, the petition is unlikely to be registered and listed for hearing. The petitioners had initially asked for a hearing on Tuesday, 13 October 2026 but have now requested for the petition to be listed for hearing on Wednesday, 14 October.

The petition urges the Supreme Court to direct ECI to place all the files and documents pertaining to the decision on conducting SIR since 24.6.2025; to examine whether disputed decisions regarding SIR were in compliance of Sec 18 of the CEC & ECs Act (decisions through majority); to constitute an independent committee headed by a retired SC Judge to conduct an independent audit of SIR; to direct the said committee to review the use and deployment of EVMs with reference to global best practices; ensure that Form 6 conforms with the Registration of Electors Rules and, finally, as an interim measure, to suspend the ongoing SIR’ exercise.