Supreme Court’s major decision on appointment of Chief Election Commissioner: PM, Leader of Opposition and CJI will choose Committee

A panel will be formed to appoint the Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioners of the country. Apart from the Prime Minister, the Leader of Opposition and Chief Justice will also be involved in this panel. The Supreme Court has suggested to the Central Government to enact a law to appoint Election Commissioners in Parliament. Till the law is not enacted, only this panel will make appointments. During the hearing of the case, Justice KM Joseph said, ‘PM, Leader of Opposition and Chief Justice should join the panel appointing the Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioners. This system will be applicable until a law is enacted for the appointment process.’

The 5-judge bench of the Supreme Court unanimously pronounced the verdict. The bench said that elections should be conducted in a fair manner. For this, there should be no dispute in the appointment of Election Commissioners and this will maintain the trust of the people. The bench said that democracy runs at the opinion of the people and hence it is important that elections are beyond the disputes and should be conducted in a fair manner. It is noteworthy that the process of selecting the CBI director is also similar, which consists of the Prime Minister, Leader of Opposition and Chief Justice. In such a situation, this decision of the Supreme Court will reduce the government’s interference in the appointment of Election Commissioners.

The bench headed by Justice KM Joseph unanimously decided that it would be better to make panels until the law is enacted for the appointment of Election Commissioners. Not only this, the court also said that if any one party gets a bumper majority and no party gets the status of the main opposition party in the Lok Sabha, then the leader of the largest party of the opposition will be taken in the panel. The bench gave this decision while hearing the petitions, which said that there should be a collegium-like arrangement for the appointment of Chief Election Commissioner and Commissioners, in which there should be many members other than the government and their opinion should also be decided in the appointment.

Justice KM Joseph said that the fairness of the election process should be maintained to maintain democracy. Otherwise it will not have good results. He said that the strength of the vote is supreme, the stronger parties can also lose power. Therefore, it is necessary to be independent of the Election Commission. It is also necessary that it should be fulfilled by staying in the purview of the law, according to the provisions of Constitution and on the basis of court orders.

Posted By Uday India