NEW DELHI: Following uproar over placing the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and election commissioners at par with the pay and perks of the cabinet secretary, the government rolled back the proposal and restored their parity with that of Supreme Court judges. The rollback came through an amendment to a bill to regulate their appointment and service terms.
The bill passed in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday included other amendments as well like upgrading the search panel and inserting a clause to protect them from court cases while discharging their duties. The new clause comes in the wake of the Telangana High Court placing under suspension a lower court judge in connection with a “direction” given by him to the police for registering an FIR against Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar and several others, saying the judge acted in “undue haste”.
The bill, however, drew sharp attacks from the Congress, which alleged that the proposed legislation subjugates the poll authority to the executive and violates the Constitution. Senior Congress MP Randeep Singh Surjewala said the proposed legislation “completely negates and subjugates the Election Commission to the authority of the Executive and it does away willingly, maliciously the judgment of the Supreme Court and that is why this law is per se like a stillborn child.”
Surjewala also claimed that the appointment committee has been reduced to an ‘empty formality’. He said the poll body is the sole authority for conducting free and fair elections in the country and thus needs to remain independent.
Search panel
Union law minister Arjun Ram Meghwal said the proposal on the search committee being headed by the cabinet secretary has been modified. The law minister will now head the panel with two Union secretaries as members