Faced with a public rift within on the issue on whether dissenting views of Election Commissioners be made public in orders passed in cases of violation of Model Code of Conduct, the Election Commission of India at its meeting on Tuesday decided by a 2:1 majority that dissent notes in such instances will not be made public.
The decision taken at a meeting of the full Commission assumes significance in the backdrop of Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa having recused himself from meetings of the panel of three Commissioners called to discuss the MCC cases. Lavasa had demanded that his dissenting, minority view be placed on record in the clean chits given to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah in matters of alleged violations of the MCC.
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At Tuesday's meeting, it is learnt that Lavasa stuck to his demand that the dissenting voice should be recorded by way of a dissent note that should be made public along with the Commission's final order in MCC cases. But he was over-ruled by the other two members of the panel—Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora and Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra.
According to a Commission official, it was inter alia decided that the proceedings of the Commission's meeting would be drawn including the views of all members. Thereafter, formal instructions to this effect will be issued in consonance with extant laws/rules etc.
It is learnt that the argument put forth to counter Lavasa's demand for the minority view to be made public along with the Commission's order in MCC matters is that the dissent needs to be brought on record and made public only in quasi-judicial matters, and MCC issues are not of quasi-judicial nature.
EC sources said the meeting was called to discuss several issues pertaining to the conduct of the Lok Sabha elections, and the issue raised by Lavasa was one among them.
A statement issued by the CEC's office last week, in the wake of the controversy over Lavasa recusing himself from Commission meetings, had stated that a meeting had already been scheduled on May 21 to discuss this and related matters.
Lavasa had recused himself from the Commission's meetings to discuss complaints of MCC violations until his demand for inclusion of the minority decision in the Commission's final order was met.
He had differed with the other two Commissioners on the clean chits given to Modi and Shah in complaints that they had allegedly violated the MCC.
In another statement last week, Arora had said the Commission had decided to form groups to discuss issues that arose during the Lok Sabha elections, including compliance with the MCC.
“During the last meeting of the Commission on May 14, it was unanimously decided that some groups shall be formed to deliberate the issues, which arose in the course of conduct of Lok Sabha Elections, 2019 just as it was one after Lok Sabha elections of 2014,” he said.
