Editorial. The PM and LoP alone should select election commissioners

In March this year, the Supreme Court ruled that appointments to the Election Commission should be made by a committee comprising the Prime Minister, the Leader of Opposition and the Chief Justice of India. This would be three institutions — Parliament, executive and judiciary — choosing the election commissioners. The Centre, through the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Bill 2023, has now said no to the Chief Justice being on the panel and replaced him with a Cabinet Minister to be nominated by the Prime Minister. So instead of three the Centre wants only two institutions making the choice. It probably thinks even this is a dilution of its powers because currently only the Cabinet appoints the election commissioners.

There are two ways of looking at the issue. One is to see it as the judiciary expanding its remit. The other is to see it as the government being generous in letting the Opposition into the tent. Which view one endorses depends on the prejudices and resulting preferences. There is simply no objective way of telling which is the better way. The choices made even by a committee that has the chief justice on it can turn out to be flawed. And the choice made even by the Cabinet alone can turn out to be very good as when it chose the formidable T N Seshan who single-handedly cleaned up the electoral process.

Regardless of who makes the choice, in the final analysis the outcome will depend on the eligible persons to be selected and the commitment of the persons selected. The new Bill has suggested that a search committee, headed by the Cabinet Secretary, should prepare a short list. This is an improvement on the present practice where the government can choose literally anyone. Indeed, India has often chosen its Presidents in this way wherein the ruling party chooses the candidate and the Central and State legislatures vote for or against. The judiciary has no say in it. In fact, nowhere in the world does the judiciary participate in such choices.

What is the way out? The onus lies with the political parties. Their leaders have tended to be bad losers. Thus when Arvind Kejriwal loses he blames the EVMs saying they are programmed to vote only for the BJP. This lowers the credibility of the Election Commission. But when he wins he is silent. Other parties have started doing the same thing. It is this ridiculous behaviour that has led to the judiciary proposing itself as the impartial arbiter. Given the straightforward nature of the problem it might be better to have just the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition select the election commissioners. They have far more skin in the game. That will lead to a better consensus than if a third party is included in the selection process who can simply choose to grandstand. Finally, there has been a vast amount of research into voting in committees that have more than two members. The results are mixed.

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