A petition has been filed in the Supreme Court (SC) seeking to restrain the government from appointing two Election Commissioners under the recently-enacted Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners (Appointment Conditions of Service and Terms of Office) Act, 2023. The plea was filed by a Congress leader from Madhya Pradesh just days ahead of the high-powered committee meeting to be chaired by the Prime Minister to select the poll officers.
With Lok Sabha elections in the offing, two posts of Election Commissioners are currently vacant after Arun Goel resigned two days ago and Anup Chandra Pandey retired last month. Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar is the only member left in the three-member Election Commission of India (ECI).
The Chief Election Commissioner And Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service And Term of Office) Act, passed by Parliament in December 2023, effectively replaced the CJI with a cabinet minister as one of the three members of the selection panel. The Act was criticised by the Opposition parties which alleged that it gave the government greater powers on the appointment of top poll officers and compromised the autonomy of the poll body.
Congress leader Jaya Thakur, who filed the petition, had earlier challenged the constitutionality of the Act, stating that the provisions of the legislation are violative of the principle of free and fair elections since it does not provide an "independent mechanism" for the appointment of the members of the Election Commission of India (ECI).
In her petition, Thakur cited the 2023 order of the Constitution Bench that ruled that election commissioners must be appointed on the advice of a panel comprising the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, and the Chief Justice of India.
