- Thursday, February 20, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
The Supreme Court of India on Wednesday (23) said independence of the election commissioner (EC) is paramount and a man who takes up the job should be a man who is independent.
“How independent is the appointing process?” the apex court asked.
A five-judge bench led by Justice KM Joseph made its observations while hearing petitions seeking reforms in the system of appointment of ECs.
“Any government can appoint a ‘yes man’,” the Supreme Court told the Indian government. “But the question is whether there is independence in his actions or not. Independence is a quality which is required,” it added.
“Setting up a model of how the election commissioners and the CEC are appointed is a much-needed step,” it added.
The government spoke in favour of the appointment process, saying there was little reason to question it and that the court should not interfere, India Today reported.
“The court cannot interfere on the basis of stray instances. There is no trigger to interfere in the process,” it said.
“There has been no trigger since 1991 that the proper process is not followed while appointing the Election Commissioner. Checks and balances already exist in the system. Creating a new system or a recommendatory body will take us back to square one,” the government, which fielded some top lawyers in the case, including solicitor general Tushar Mehta, said.
The top court cited one argument that claimed that the EC is completely funded by the government and the latter said that it is within the purview of the parliament to take a call on whether to shift to a consolidated fund, the report added.
The court asked, “Was the appointment of the election commissioners two days ago a transparent process? What mechanism did the Centre undertake?”
“It’s a convention, a consultative process,” the government said.
Senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan said Arun Goel, who was appointed as an EC on Saturday (19), took voluntary retirement service (VRS) a day before his appointment.
“On Thursday, this court was hearing the case. Arun Goel, who was appointed as election commissioner, was a sitting secretary in the government and he took VRS and the appointment was made hurriedly,” Bhushan said.
Justice Joseph said, “In VRS, there should be a three months’ notice. Mr attorney, let files be brought before us for the appointment of this man and let things become clear. You have to make clear the mechanism which was adopted.”
“The interim application is there and the government goes ahead with the appointment. Because the government says everything is good, then what is the issue of bringing the appointment file before us? We would like to have the file. We have to satisfy ourselves because the matter is being heard by us and the application is pending before us,” he added.
According to the India Today report, the Election Commission of India was asked to produce all files related to Goel’s appointment on Thursday (24) when the hearing resumes.
