Delhi Assembly Elections will be the Current Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar’s last election as an Election Commissioner. Kumar is slated to retire on February 18.
The President will appoint the new CEC upon the recommendation of the The section committee. The appointment of the new Election Commissioner will be as per the Chief Election Commissioner And Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service And Term of Office) Act, 2023.
Until now, the successor to the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) has been the next senior most Election Commissioner. In this case, Gyanesh Kumar. According to an Indian Express report, As per the act, Kumar can still be in the race for the top post of the poll body.
However, according to Sections 6 and 7 of the Act, the Ministry of Law will form a Search Committee chaired by the Law Minister to prepare a panel of five names for the Selection Committee. The act also made changes in the selection committee. Earlier, the selection committee consisted of the Prime Minister, CJI and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.
After the act, The Selection Committee will now consist of the Prime Minister, a Cabinet minister and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, who can select from this panel or consider “any other person” from outside, which means other than the two serving Election Commissioners. The act states that the candidates for the top post would be current or former Secretary-level officers.
Let me give you a brief history of what had happened before the act came into force.
The Supreme Court in March 2023 ruled that a three-member panel, headed by the Prime Minister and comprising the leader of the opposition in Lok Sabha and the Chief Justice of India, will select the CEC and ECs till a law is framed by Parliament on the appointment of these commissioners.
The bench delivered its verdict on a batch of pleas seeking a collegium-like system for the appointment of election commissioners and the Chief Election Commissioner. The bench, while delivering its judgement, had said: “Purity of the election process must be maintained to preserve democracy; otherwise, it would lead to disastrous consequences,” the top court said.
The top court held that elections should undoubtedly be fair, and the buck stops with the ECI to ensure that purity of poll process is maintained.
The founding fathers of the Constitution left it for Parliament to frame law for the appointment of Chief Election Commissioner and ECs, but political dispensations betrayed the trust, and the law has not been framed in the last seven decades, the court said.
Cut to December 2023, The Modi government introduced The CEC and Other Election Commissioners Bill, 2023 in the Parliament and got it passed in both houses.
The appointment of Election commissioners Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu has happened as per the new provision.
Notably, on Wednesday, the SC said it would hear petitions challenging the Act, particularly the exclusion of the CJI on February 4.
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