November 21, 2024

Supreme Court: Making The Election Commission Truly Independent

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2023-03-03 08:02:55

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Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.

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In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that Election Commissioner (EC) and the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) will henceforth be selected by a panel comprising of the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice of India and the leader of the opposition (LoP) in Lok Sabha till the Parliament enacts a law on the subject. Ruing the fact that several Central governments in the past 75 years have failed to enact such a law, despite the Constitution asking them to do so, as it will hamper their pursuit of power, the five-judge constitution bench said that exclusive control of the executive in such selection cannot be allowed to continue.

The bench said that "ECs, including the CEC, blessed with nearly infinite powers, must be chosen not by the executive exclusively and particularly without any objective yardstick". It said that "weak-kneed persons" or persons who are obligated or feel indebted to those who appoint them cannot be entrusted with the job as it is the "very foundation of democracy". There was stiff opposition from the Centre which said that the judiciary was stepping in executive domain but the bench was of the view that it has to step in as there is legislative vacuum in the matter. The court also accorded a huge degree of independence to the Election Commission by ruling that, among other things, it can now draw funds directly from the Consolidated Fund of India instead of waiting for approvals from the finance and other ministries.

There is no doubt that the selection of such important functionaries as the ECs and the CEC must follow some defined yardstick and must not be left to the whims and fancies of the party in power at the Centre. The practice now is to appoint retired bureaucrats who were close to the ruling dispensation to have control over them while maintaining a facade of propriety. But one feels that with regional parties becoming important in recent times, the Supreme Court could have, apart from the leader of the opposition in Parliament, included the leaders (in Parliament) of the next two big parties in the panel to make it truly representative.