EC Appointments: SC to Hear Petitions Challenging New Law on March 15
New Delhi: As the Union government gets set to appoint two new Election Commissioners, the Supreme Court on Wednesday said it would hear on Friday, March 15, the petitions challenging the new Act on such appointments.
The new law - Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023 (Act) -- passed recently by the Narendra Modi government, excludes the Chief Justice of India (CJI) from the selection committee for appointing the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and two Election Commissioners (ECs). This has been challenged by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Congress leader Jaya Thakur.
The petitions were mentioned before a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna, MM Sundresh and Bela Trivedi, according to Live Law.
On Tuesday, senior advocate Prashant Bhushan had sought an urgent listing, who reportedly quoted Justice Khanna as saying that "I just got the message from the CJI that it will be listed on Friday.”
At present, the three-member Election Commission is left with just the CEC Rajiv Kumar, as EC Arun Goel suddenly resigned last week and Anup Pandey had retired earlier.
With the Lok Sabha election dates scheduled to be announced soon, the Modi government was reportedly all set to announce the names of the two new ECs on March 15.
“The Supreme Court has twice refused to stay the new law, which allows appointment to the posts of CEC and Election Commissioners by a selection committee comprising the Prime Minister (PM), a Union Cabinet Minister, and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha,” the Bar & Bench reported.
The petitioners feel the omission of the CJI would lead to the ruling government dominating the selection process.
One of the petitions also cites the case of Anoop Barnwal vs Union of India, wherein the SC’s constitution bench had held that leaving the appointment of members of ECI in the hand of the executive would be ‘seriously detrimental to the health of our democracy and conduct of free and fair elections”.
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