The Supreme Court docket on Thursday refused to remain the 2023 Chief Election Commissioner and Different Election Commissioners Act and requested the Centre to reply inside six weeks to a clutch of petitions difficult the constitutional validity of the regulation, Bar and Bench reported.
A bench comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta heard writ petitions filed by Congress chief Jaya Thakur, the Affiliation for Democratic Reforms and different petitioners questioned the validity of the amendments made to the Act, specifically the exclusion of the chief justice of India from the choice committee tasked with appointments to the Election Fee.
Senior advocate Vikas Singh, representing one of many petitioners, highlighted the precedent set by the Supreme Court docket’s 2023 judgement in Anoop Baranwal Versus Union of India, in response to which the appointments have been to be made by the president of India on the recommendation of a panel comprising the prime minister, the chief of the Opposition within the Lok Sabha and the chief justice of India, reported Dwell Regulation.
The choice committee had been fashioned to defend the Election Fee from govt affect. Earlier than this judgement, appointments to the fee have been made on the sole discretion of the Centre.
By changing the chief justice with a Cupboard minister, the brand new regulation has introduced the choice of election commissioners again below the Centre’s management and given the ruling get together the decisive voice in appointments to the Election Fee.
On Thursday, advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the Affiliation for Democratic Reforms, questioned the sequence of occasions resulting in the choice committee’s assembly on March 14 and the submitting of functions searching for the keep of the Act.
“Now they’ve been appointed, elections are on nook…,” Justice Khanna responded. “It’s a query of steadiness of comfort. There aren’t any allegations in opposition to individuals appointed.”
Different attorneys arguing for the petitioners additionally raised issues over the regulation’s potential opposed influence on the equity of the electoral course of in India.
“Based on me, in all seriousness, this act will put an finish to democratic course of,” stated senior advocate Sanjay Parikh.
The bench verbally remarked to Solicitor Basic Tushar Mehta that the choice committee may have examined the names “extra slowly”.
Mehta submitted that the method to nominate the brand new election commissioners had began in February, instantly after the Act got here into power and that the method had not been expedited.
In an affidavit filed earlier, the Centre had denied the allegations that two new election commissioners – bureaucrats Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu – have been swiftly appointed as election commissioners on March 14 to preempt any orders handed by the Supreme Court docket within the matter, which it was scheduled to listen to on March 15.