'Disturbing trend': Supreme Court raps Centre over short tenure of ECs, CECs

The Supreme Court on Tuesday termed the exploitation of the “silence of the Constitution” and the absence of a law governing the appointments of election commissioners and chief election commissioners a “disturbing trend”.

The court flagged Article 324 of the Constitution, which talks about the appointment of election commissioners, and said it does not provide the procedure for such appointments. Moreover, it had envisaged the enactment of a law by Parliament in this regard, which has not been done in the last 72 years, leading to exploitation by the Centre, it said.

The court pointed out that since 2004, no chief election commissioner has completed the six-year tenure and during the 10-year rule of the UPA government, there were six CECs and in the eight years of the NDA government, there have been eight CECs.

A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Justice K M Joseph said, “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 top court is hearing a batch of pleas seeking a collegium-like system for the appointment of the CEC.

The bench said even though the CEC heads an institution, with his truncated tenure, he cannot do anything substantial. “Looking at the list of the chief election commissioners since 2004, the majority of them do not have more than two years’ 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, who appeared in the matter on behalf of the Centre.

Venkataramani said the present process under which the president appoints the CECs and ECs cannot be said to be unconstitutional and the court cannot strike it down.

“The Constituent Assembly, which had different models before it, had adopted this model and now, the court cannot say that the present model needs consideration.... There is no provision of the Constitution in this regard which requires interpretation,” he said.