{"id":34588,"date":"2022-11-23T07:24:02","date_gmt":"2022-11-23T01:54:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=34588"},"modified":"2025-04-20T15:21:57","modified_gmt":"2025-04-20T09:51:57","slug":"cec-must-be-apolitical-strong-and-beyond-influence-says-sc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/cec-must-be-apolitical-strong-and-beyond-influence-says-sc\/","title":{"rendered":"CEC Must Be Apolitical, Strong and Beyond Influence, Says SC"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article:<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>About ECI (Role, Appointment, Tenure, Composition, Budget, etc.)<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>News Summary (SC\u2019s Observation CEC\u2019s appointment process)<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why In News:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Supreme Court raised questions on the present system of the Central government appointing serving bureaucrats of its choice as Chief Election Commissioners (CECs) and Election Commissioners (ECs).<\/li>\n<li>The Court said that a \u201cfair and transparent system\u201d should be adopted to appoint the best apolitical person with strong character who can make independent decisions without being influenced.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Election Commission of India:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Election Commission is a permanent and independent body.<\/li>\n<li>By\u00a0<strong>Article 324<\/strong>\u00a0of the Constitution of India, it is vested with the power of conducting elections to\u00a0<u>Parliament<\/u>,\u00a0<u>State Legislatures<\/u>,\u00a0<u>the office of President<\/u>\u00a0and\u00a0<u>Vice-President of India<\/u>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Appointment and Tenure of Commissioners:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The President appoints the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and Election Commissioners.<\/li>\n<li>They have\u00a0<strong>tenure of six years, or up to the age of 65 years<\/strong>, whichever is earlier.<\/li>\n<li>They enjoy the same status and receive salary and perks as available to Judges of the Supreme Court of India.<\/li>\n<li>The CEC can be removed from office except in same manner and on the same grounds as a judge of the Supreme Court.<\/li>\n<li>The Constitution has not prescribed the qualifications of the members of the Election Commission.<\/li>\n<li>The Constitution has\u00a0<u>not debarred the retiring Election Commissioners from any further appointment by the Government<\/u>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Composition of Election Commission:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Since the inceptions and till 15<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0October 1989, the EC functioned as a single member body consisting of the CEC.<\/li>\n<li>On 16<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0October 1989, the\u00a0<u>President appointed two more commissioners to cope with the increased work of the EC, on account of lowering of the voting age from 21 to 18 years<\/u>.<\/li>\n<li>In case of difference of opinion amongst the CEC and\/or two other election commissioners,\u00a0<u>the matter is decided by the Commission by majority<\/u>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Budget &amp; Expenditure:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Secretariat of the Commission has an\u00a0<u>independent budget<\/u>, which is finalized directly in consultation between the Commission and the Finance Ministry of the Union Government.<\/li>\n<li>If elections are being held only for the Parliament, the expenditure is borne entirely by the Union Government.<\/li>\n<li>If elections are being held only for the State Legislature, the expenditure is borne entirely by the concerned State.<\/li>\n<li>In case of simultaneous elections to the Parliament and State Legislature, the expenditure is shared equally between the Union and the State Governments.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Political Parties &amp; the Commission:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Election Commission ensures a level playing field for the political parties in election fray, through strict observance by them of a\u00a0<u>Model Code of Conduct evolved with the consensus of political parties<\/u>.<\/li>\n<li>Political parties are registered with the Election Commission.<\/li>\n<li>The Commission ensures inner party democracy in their functioning by insisting upon them to hold their organizational elections at periodic intervals.<\/li>\n<li>The Commission, as a part of its\u00a0<strong>quasi-judicial jurisdiction<\/strong>, also settles disputes between the splinter groups of such recognised parties.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>At State Level:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>At State level, the Election Commission is assisted by the\u00a0<strong>Chief Electoral Officer<\/strong>.\n<ul>\n<li>Chief Electoral Officer is appointed by the Chief Election Commissioner in consultation with the State Government.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>At District level, the Collector acts as the\u00a0<strong>District Returning Officer<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>He appoints a\u00a0<strong>Returning Officer for every constituency<\/strong>\u00a0in the state.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>News Summary:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court is hearing a series of petitions seeking functional independence for Election Commissioners.<\/li>\n<li>Challenging the constitutionality of the present appointment process, the petitioners contended that appointments were being done as per the whims and fancies of the executive.<\/li>\n<li>The petitioners pleaded for creation of an independent collegium or selection committee for future appointment of CEC and ECs.<\/li>\n<li>The court is specifically examining the question of s<u>etting up an \u201cindependent, neutral mechanism\u201d<\/u>, outside the control of the government, for the appointment of Election Commissioners.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Supreme Court\u2019s Observation:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Supreme Court said the Central government pays mere \u201clip-service\u201d to the independence of the Election Commissioners.\n<ul>\n<li>This is evident from the way the\u00a0<u>tenures of Chief Election Commissioners (CECs) have \u201cslid\u201d down from over eight years in the 1950s to just about a few hundred days after 2004<\/u>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The court said successive governments, particularly after 2004, have picked people whom it knew would never ever get close to the full term of six years prescribed under the\u00a0<strong>Election Commission Act, 1991<\/strong>.\n<ul>\n<li>Section 4 of the 1991 Act says the\u00a0<u>term of a CEC and Election Commissioners is six years or till the age of 65 years, whichever is earlier<\/u>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The court said\u00a0<u>protections under Article 324, like removal through impeachment, available under the Constitution to the CECs would only be of any use if he or she had a full term<\/u>.<\/li>\n<li>Referring to former CEC\u00a0<strong>TN Seshan<\/strong>, the court said people came to know about the Commission when he took charge and took a slew of decisions to make the panel independent.<\/li>\n<li>The\u00a0<strong>bench observed that involving the Chief Justice of India (CJI) in the selection process of CEC\/ECs would go a long way to ensure transparency.<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The presence of the CJI would send a message that you cannot play games in selection and best person of character would be picked.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Election Commission of India was established to conduct and regulate elections in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":34589,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-34588","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}