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Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has sent a letter to the Union Law Ministry, seeking the “dossier” well in time for candidates shortlisted for two Election Commissioners’ posts, which the Prime Minister-led panel will consider for selection in a meeting on Thursday.
Chowdhury is a member of the Central Election Commission members selection committee, which is headed by the PM and has a union minister as its third member.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear on March 15 the petitions challenging the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023, which dropped the Chief Justice of India from the selection panel of Election Commissioners.
In his letter to Rajiv Mani, Secretary of the Legislative Department and Department of Legal Affairs, Union Ministry of Law and Justice, the Congress MP from West Bengal requested the government to follow the procedure for selecting the Chief Information Commissioner and Information Commissioners and Chief Vigilance Commissioner and Vigilance Commissioners, for appointment of Election Commissioners.
“It will be essential to have the bio-profiles of the persons shortlisted by the Search Committee well beforehand … the Meeting of the Selection Committee. This will enable in taking a reasoned decision in the matter. I would, therefore, request that the ‘Dossier’ containing the bio-profiles of the shortlisted persons to be considered for appointment be made available to the Members well before the Meeting,” Chowdhury wrote Mani.
The panel will meet on Thursday to fill vacancies that arose after Arun Goel abruptly resigned from the Election Commissioner’s post late last week and Anup Chandra Pandey’s retirement in February. Owing to this, the announcement of the Lok Sabha election schedule, which was supposed to be around March 15, got postponed by a few days since now only Rajiv Kumar, the Chief Election Commissioner, remains in office.
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