Congress leader Dr Jaya Thakur filed an application in the Supreme Court on March 11 seeking to restrain the government from appointing a new Election Commissioner to fill the position vacated by Arun Goel a couple of days ago.
News agency PTI had reported earlier that two election commissioners were likely to be appointed by March 15 to fill the vacancies created by the retirement of Anup Chandra Pandey and the surprise resignation of Goel.
A committee under Law Minister Arjun Meghwal and comprising the Home Secretary and the Department of Personnel and Training Secretary was supposed to prepare two separate panels of five names each for the two posts. Thereafter, a selection panel headed by the PM and comprising a Union minister and Leader of the Congress party in the Lok Sabha were to name two persons for the two posts.Goel quit his post on March 9, leaving the Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar alone in the saddle at the poll watchdog. Goel, a former bureaucrat, was appointed as Election Commissioner in 2022.
As per an ET report, Goel’s move was preceded by differences with the chief election commissioner. The issues seem to have escalated recently following Anup Pandey’s retirement on February 15, it said.
It may be noted here that Pandey had retired just days before Goel’s sudden announcement, leaving a vacancy in the poll panel.According to an official statement from the Ministry of Law and Justice: “In pursuance of clause (1) of Section 11 of The Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023, the President is pleased to accept the resignation tendered by Shri Arun Goel, Election Commissioner with effect from the 09th March, 2024”.The Election Commission of India, for most of the past three decades, has been a three-member panel. There have only been two aberrations (1999 and 2009 Lok Sabha elections) when polls were overseen by just two members because of a members’ retirement in the middle of the poll cycle.
The election commission originally used to have just a chief commissioner. Two additional commissioners were first appointed on October 16, 1989, and thereafter, on October 1, 1993. Since then, the commission has been functioning in a multi-member format, with decisions taken by a majority vote.