In a major landmark judgment, the Supreme Court on Thursday scrapped the system of appointment of the chief election commissioner and the election commissioners by the Prime Minister and held that the appointments be made by a panel which will include the Prime Minister, the leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and the Chief Justice of India. Pointing out that this will be akin to appointment of the CBI chief, the Bench observed this will ‘‘maintain the purity of elections.’’The Chief Election Commissioners and the two election commissioners, who oversee elections across the country, will hereafter be appointed by the President on the advice of the three-member committee, the Supreme Court's 5-judge Constitution Bench said in a unanimous verdict.
This system will continue to hold good until a law is made by Parliament. The court also asked the government to make a necessary change with regard to funding of the Election Commission from the Consolidated Fund of India and the need for separate Secretariat.
“Elections should undoubtedly be fair and the buck stops with the Election Commission of India to ensure its purity is maintained,” said the Bench, stressing that "in democracy, the purity of elections must be maintained or else it would lead to disastrous consequences."Currently, the President appoints the chief election commissioner and two commissioners for tenure of six years each, and they are usually former bureaucrats nominated on the recommendation of the Prime Minister.During the course of the hearing, the Bench had asked Attorney General (AG) for India if the existing practice of appointing bureaucrats on the verge of retirement was rational.
Petitions had sought a collegium-like system for the appointment of election commissioners to ensure fair elections.
Justice Jospeh, who pronounced the verdict, noted that there is huge surge in the role of money power and criminalisation of politics and that a large section of the media has abdicated its role and become partisan.
The court also observed that political parties at the Centre force chief election commissioners to do their bidding, so that they can stay in power, thereby, compromising the independence of the Election Commission. In this context, the Bench questioned the Central government as to what the tearing hurry was to appoint Arun Goel as Election Commissioner a few months ago, and how the names were even shortlisted before his selection.
