The Election Commission of India’s affidavit in the Supreme Court is, in one sense, a defence of unanimity. Approved for filing by a unanimous decision of all three members, it insists that the Commission’s major decisions on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls were taken collectively. Notes recording suggestions, observations or queries by individual Commissioners, it argues, do not themselves constitute decisions of the Commission and are part of the consultative process.

That would be an answer if the two Commissioners had objected before the decisions were taken. Most of the 14 notes recorded over 10 months by Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi were written afterwards. A decision had been taken, a system built, an order issued or a case filed, and the note records that they had not been told. The issue the investigation by The Indian Express raised was not whether the Commission eventually approved the decisions.…