The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear next month a batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of a law excluding the Chief Justice of India from the high-level panel for the appointment of the Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioners.
A bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Vipul M Pancholi listed the petitions for hearing on May 6 after the order was passed by a bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant last month to apprehend a possible “conflict of interest” due to his position as ICJ.
The petitions filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Congress leader Jaya Thakur among others, challenge the validity of the CJI and other ECs (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Service) Bill, 2023. According to them, the law excluding the CJI from the selection panel fails to uphold free and fair elections that form part of the basic structure of the Constitution.
The petitions claim that the law violates the Supreme Court’s Constitutional Court decision in the Anup Baranwal case (2023) which stated that the CEC and EC would be selected by a high-level committee headed by the Prime Minister and comprising the CJI and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.
The Supreme Court’s ruling was to keep the field open until Parliament enacted a law. However, the 2023 Act replaced the Commission’s Justice and Equality Committee with a minister nominated by the Prime Minister, effectively giving the government a clear majority in selecting the CEC and the European Commission. The court had earlier rejected the petitioners’ requests to suspend the law.
One of the petitions filed in the batch even challenged the appointment of the current CEC and Executive Committee in accordance with the contested law. The court wondered why individuals were named in the petition as they were appointed in accordance with the law.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing one of the petitioners, said the court should consider the Baranwale case and other judgments of the Supreme Court, all by the Constitution benches, which underscore the need to make such appointments transparent and fair.
The court agreed to allocate a full day to hear the petitioners and asked the Center and the Election Commission of India to submit any documents required to hear the case.
