Supreme Court ruling will be overruled by a bill on EC appointments: Opposition

On Thursday, the Opposition accused the Union government of “diluting and overturning” a ruling by the Constitution bench of the Supreme Court by introducing a bill in the Rajya Sabha that seeks to exclude the chief justice of India (CJI) from a three-member selection committee that chooses the election commissioners and chief election commissioner.

The Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners (Appointment Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Bill, 2023 aims to swap out the Chief Justice of India for a cabinet minister as one of the three members of the selection panel to choose the CEC and election commissioners, with the prime minister and the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha serving as the other two members.

 

A new confrontation between the administration and the opposition was created by the presentation of the law, particularly the removal of CJI from the panel.

 

Communist Party of India (Marxist) lawmaker John Brittas, who had given a notice opposing the introduction of the bill, told reporters outside Parliament that “introduction of this bill will override the Supreme Court Constitution Bench’s judgment regarding the appointment of the chief election commissioner and other election commissioners.”

 

In writ petition (Civil) No. 104 of 2015 (Anoop Baranwal v. Union of India) and other related writ petitions, the Supreme Court emphatically stated that the appointment of the CEC and the ECs shall be made on the recommendations made by a three-member selection committee. Brittas claimed that Clause 7 of the bill, which specifies the composition of the selection committee, “is in stark contradiction to the dictum laid down by the

 

The CPI(M) leader said that maintaining the Election Commission as an independent body to oversee the nation’s democratic process was the goal of the Supreme Court’s ruling. In order to guarantee the conduct of free and fair elections in the nation, the independence in the selection process of the CEC and other election commissioners must be protected as sacred. Any effort to weaken its independence must be resisted, he said.

 

The Monsoon session of Parliament, which concludes on Friday, will not include a debate of or a vote on the measure.

 

Under the condition of anonymity, a Trinamool Congress MP criticized the Centre for proposing the bill amidst a commotion and said that the government “tried to bulldoze its introduction” because they “knew they don’t have the numbers to pass the bill.”

 

The Congress officially expressed their objection as well. Randeep Surjewala, a Rajya Sabha member of the Congress, said outside of Parliament that the bill “attacks the judiciary, the Constitution, and the people’s right to a fair and impartial election of their own government.”

 

Moreover, he cited the Anoop Baranwal v. Union of India case, stating that the top court had stated in paragraph 165 of the ruling that “the election commissioners, including the CEC blessed with nearly infinite powers and who are to abide by the fundamental rights, must be chosen not by the Executive exclusively and particularly without any objective yardstick.”

 

The head of the Congress said that the planned committee is not a check and balance and that it is without a shadow of a doubt that the appointments committee is a “empty formality” given that no cabinet member would vote against the prime minister who nominated him or her.

 

“…The parliamentary opposition’s attendance and vote are essentially unnecessary since the prevailing regime has two nominations as opposed to one. This same kind of presidential authority has been cautioned against by the Supreme Court, he said.

 

The selection committee’s makeup, according to Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) member Manoj Jha, does not augur well for the independence of the election panel.

 

He remarked outside of Parliament, “I am astonished but not surprised at how the current administration would annihilate everything that we believed was appropriate to constitutional propriety or decency.

 

According to Jha, the new makeup indicates that the quorum will favor the administration. We know the path it will go with these three people… There is no question that going forward, we cannot even consider holding free and fair elections, and Article 324 is essentially unnecessary. Considering how the EC has handled complaints against the governing party in the past, he said, “Even the electoral commission shall become more than what the term sham represents. From now on, when they will have the patronage, they will assume they have been picked by a government.

 

Election Commissions are given supervision, guidance, and control over elections under Article 324.

 

According to the government’s circulated bill, the selection will be made by a three-member panel made up of the prime minister, who will serve as chairman, the leader of the largest party in the Lok Sabha or the opposition, and a cabinet minister who the PM will nominate.

 

The government noted that the Supreme Court had decided in March that until Parliament passed legislation governing the selection process, appointments to the poll panel should be made on the recommendation of a committee made up of the PM, the LoP in the Lok Sabha, and the CJI.

 

A senior government official who asked to remain anonymous stated, “Just as the court has said, the government has moved ahead to frame the laws…what is the opposition protesting against?”