NEW DELHI: The Centre in its affidavit filed before the Supreme Court defending the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Act, which dropped the Chief Justice of India (CJI) from the selection panel appointing CEC and ECs.
The Centre, in its affidavit filed before the Supreme Court opposed the demand of the batch of pleas to cancel the appointment of Election Commissioners due to not including the CJI in the selection.
In the reply filed in the SC, the UOI objected to the argument of the petitioners that the commission will be independent only when there are judges in the selection committee. "This argument by the petitioners are is wrong," the UOI said, and added that the purpose of the petitioners were to create political controversy. "The pleas are only filed for garnering political mileage," it said.
The Centre also defended the appointment of the two Election Commissioners (ECs) by a panel which does not include the CJI.
The UOI said that the deliberations of the high level committee under CEC and EC Act, 2023, are collaborative and discussions take place at the actual meeting itself.
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear tomorrow the batch of paleas challenging the Act of dropping CJI from panel to select CEC & ECs.
This act had been challenged before the top court by various petitioners, including that of Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), Dr. Jaya Thakur (General Secretary of the Madhya Pradesh Mahila Congress Committee), Sanjay Narayanrao Meshram, Dharmendra Singh Kushwaha, advocate Gopal Singh.
Although the top court had earlier in its order refused to stay the implementation of the Election Commissioner Act, 2023, but it had said it would examine the matter at a later stage and thereby issued notice to the Centre and sought the response in April.
It is to be noted that the new election commissioners' law has dropped CJI from the selection panel for appointing CEC and other ECs, forcing the petitioners to knock the doors of the Apex court seeking appropriate directions and to include the CJI in the selection panel.
The PIL (Public Interest Litigation) filed by ADR, challenged the constitutional validity of Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023
The PIL said that the Act allows Executive to dominate the matter of appointment of Election Commission members, threatening democracy
It is to be noted that on January 12, a notice was also issued by the apex court on 2 other PILs raising the same issue. These two petitioners were; Jaya Thakur & Gopal Singh.
Senior Supreme Court lawyer and former Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Vikas Singh, appearing for Madhya Pradesh based Congress leader, Thakur had earlier submitted to the Top Court that the new law is against the principle of separation of powers. So this court should pass appropriate directions and orders in the plea.
The recently-passed law allows appointment to the posts of CEC and Election Commissioners by a Selection Committee comprising the Prime Minister (PM), a Union Cabinet Minister and the Leader of Opposition (LOP) in Lok Sabha. It excludes CJI in the panel.
