Spelling further trouble for the embattled Election Commission, a fresh petition has been filed in the Supreme Court challenging the appointment of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi.Petitioner Suri Payala alleged that their appointments were made in breach of the procedure prescribed under the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023.Alleging non-compliance with Sections 5, 6 and 8(1) of the Act in these appointments, the petitioner challenged the March 14, 2024, notifications which appointed Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu as Election Commissioners.Payala further challenged Gyanesh Kumar’s appointment as the CEC through a February 17, 2025, notification and Vivek Joshi’s appointment as an Election Commissioner through the same notification.The petitioner contended that the search committee was required to prepare a panel of five persons for each vacancy. However, when two ECs’ vacancies arose in March 2024, the search committee recommended only six names for the two vacancies, Payala pointed out.The Supreme Court had on October 5 issued notice to the Election Commission and the Centre on PILs alleging the poll panel led by Gyanesh Kumar took 14 decisions between October 2025 and August 2026 allegedly without the approval of Sandhu and Joshi.Security tightened at Gyanesh’s houseThe Delhi Police have tightened security in and around the official residence of CEC Gyanesh Kumar and the Election Commission office amid protests by Opposition parties and the Cockroach Janta PartyKumar has Z-Plus security cover, which entails a minimum of 32 personnel, mainly drawn from Delhi Police.The security cover for the CEC was enhanced to the top category during the tenure of former CEC Rajiv Kumar by the CentreA Bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant had also asked Kumar, Sandhu, Joshi, EC Director General (IT) Seema Khanna and Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Maneesh Garg to file their replies to the PILs.PIL petitioners Rakesh Kumar Singh and advocate Shailendra Mani Tripathi have challenged the decisions, guidelines and software changes allegedly made by the Chief Election Commissioner without the concurrence of Sandhu and Joshi and posted the matter for hearing on October 27.However, despite repeated requests from senior counsel Vikas Singh, representing petitioner Rakesh Kumar Singh to pass an interim order restraining Kumar from functioning as the CEC, the Bench had refused to pass any such order at this juncture without hearing out the Election Commission only on the basis of news reports.“News reports may be fully or partially correct. We would like to have their (EC’s) response… We will seek responses of respondents 5-8 (Sandhu, Joshi and two other poll panel officials) also. They will respond to us. There’s a law. They are expected to follow. If we find that law was not followed, you know what can happen…,” the Bench had told Vikas Singh, who insisted on an interim order to restrain Kumar.“Let’s first have authenticated information on that. We can always annul any decision,” it said even as Vikas Singh contended that the top court would never annul an election that had already happened.“If records show some decision was not unanimous etc., we will injunct those decisions and say they are ultra-vires. Can we ex-parte come to a decision that all decisions were unilateral? We expect them to respond in a clear, transparent manner,” the Bench had noted.