Silence of Constitution exploited: Supreme Court on appointment of CEC, ECs

New Delhi, November 22

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The Supreme Court on Tuesday questioned the Centre on the absence of a law to govern the appointment of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and Election Commissioners (ECs), saying the “silence of the Constitution” was being exploited by successive governments.

Disturbing trend

In 10 years of the UPA govt, they had six CECs and the present NDA govt, in nearly eight years, has had eight CECs. This is a disturbing trend. SC Bench

Terming it a “disturbing trend”, a five-judge Constitution Bench led by Justice KM Joseph pointed out that since 2004, no CEC had completed the six-year tenure.

“In 10 years of the UPA government, they had six CECs and the present NDA government, in nearly eight years, has had eight CECs. This is a disturbing trend as far as our country is concerned. There are no checks and balances in the Constitution. This is how the silence of the Constitution is being exploited. There is no law and legally, they are correct. Nothing could be done in the absence of a law,” the Bench said.

The Bench, which also included Justice Ajay Rastogi, Justice Aniruddha Bose, Justice Hrishikesh Roy and Justice CT Ravikumar, was hearing petitions seeking a Collegium-like system for the appointment of the CEC and ECs referred to it in 2018. Last week, the Centre had vehemently opposed it, saying any such attempt would amount to amending the Constitution.

“Looking at the list of the CECs since 2004, the majority of them do not have more than two-year tenure. As per law, they have fixed a tenure of six years or up to the age of 65 years, whichever is earlier. Most of them were former bureaucrats and the government knew about their age. They were appointed at such a point that they were never able to complete six years and had a truncated tenure,” the Bench told Attorney General R Venkataramani.

The Bench pointed out that Article 324 of “the Constitution talks about the appointment of CEC and ECs, but it does not provide for the procedure for such appointments and it left it to Parliament to enact a law for the purpose. But it has not been done in the last 72 years, leading to exploitation by the Centre”.