Election Commission SIR 2026: Meet 5 retired SC, HC judges on panel examining legality, impact on voters
Former judges form panel to examine electoral roll revision
Theindiapostdaily.com – The Lawyers’ Association for Constitution has constituted a five-member panel of retired judges to assess the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. The exercise will examine the legal questions surrounding the revision as well as its possible consequences for voters.
Former Supreme Court judge Madan B. Lokur will lead the panel, which was announced in a press release dated October 2, 2026. Its other members are former Supreme Court judge A. K. Patnaik, former Jammu and Kashmir High Court Chief Justice Badar Durrez Ahmad, and former judges Rekha Sharma and Anjana Prakash.
An electoral-roll revision is significant because voter lists determine who is eligible to cast a ballot. The panel’s proposed examination places focus on whether the process is legally sound and how it may affect citizens whose names are included, corrected, excluded or required to submit information during the exercise.
Justice Madan B. Lokur
Justice Madan Bhimarao Lokur, born on December 31, 1953, chairs the panel. His schooling included Modern School in New Delhi until 1968 and St. Joseph’s Collegiate in Allahabad, where he completed the ISCE examination in 1970-71.
He earned a History Honours degree from St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi, in 1974. He then completed his LLB at the Faculty of Law, Delhi University, in 1977.
Justice Lokur enrolled as an advocate in July 1977 and practised before the Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court. In July 1998, he became Additional Solicitor General of India. He was appointed an additional judge of the Delhi High Court in February 1999 and became a permanent judge there in July of that year.
He served as Acting Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court from February 13, 2010, to May 21, 2010. His appointment to the Supreme Court followed on June 4, 2012. He retired on December 30, 2018, as the senior-most judge of the court.
Justice Lokur also served on the non-resident panel of the Supreme Court of Fiji, becoming the first Indian judge to sit as a judge in a foreign country.
Justice A. K. Patnaik
Justice Ananga Kumar Patnaik was born on June 3, 1949. He studied Political Science with Honours at Delhi University and obtained his law degree from Madhusudan Law College in Cuttack. He is the son of the late Gopal Chandra Patnaik, a businessman from Odisha.
He joined the State Bar Council of Orissa on March 28, 1974, and practised before the high court, subordinate courts and tribunals in the state. On January 13, 1994, he was elevated as an additional judge of the Orissa High Court. Soon afterward, on February 7, 1994, he took charge as an additional judge of the Gauhati High Court.
Justice Patnaik became a permanent judge of the Gauhati High Court in 1995. After eight years there, he returned to the Orissa High Court as a judge on April 15, 2002.
His subsequent judicial appointments included Chief Justice of the Chhattisgarh High Court on March 14, 2005, followed by a transfer as Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court on October 2, 2005. He was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2009 and retired in 2014.
Justice Badar Durrez Ahmad
Justice Badar Durrez Ahmad was born in Shillong, Meghalaya, on March 16, 1956. He attended St Edmund’s College in Shillong between 1962 and 1966, then studied at St Columba’s High School in New Delhi from 1966 to 1971.
After graduating from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University, in 1975, he taught Economics to BA Honours second-year and final-year students at the college from 1977 to 1979. During that period, he pursued legal studies and received his LLB from Delhi University in 1980.
He enrolled with the Bar Council of Delhi on September 5, 1980, beginning a legal practice before the Supreme Court and Delhi High Court. His interests included personal laws, particularly Muslim Personal Law, on which he wrote several articles.
Justice Ahmad became an additional judge of the Delhi High Court on December 20, 2002. He later served as Acting Chief Justice of that court from June 10, 2013, to September 2, 2013, and was again appointed Acting Chief Justice on February 17, 2014.
On April 1, 2017, he was elevated as Chief Justice of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court.
Other members of the panel
The committee also includes former judges Rekha Sharma and Anjana Prakash. Together, the five members bring experience from the Supreme Court and multiple high courts to an examination of a process that has direct importance for electoral participation.
The panel’s work is expected to focus on both principle and practical effect: the legal framework used for revising voter rolls, safeguards for citizens, and the possible implications when an individual’s electoral registration is reviewed. In a democratic system, accurate electoral lists are essential, while fair procedures are equally important for ensuring eligible voters are not left out.
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