Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar held a press conference in Ranchi on Sunday. |Picture source: ANI
The Supreme Court amended a batch of requests to appoint the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and Election Commissioner (EC) under the 2023 Legal Challenge on Wednesday, May 14 (April 16, 2025).
On the urging of the bench on the promotion of Prashant Bhushan, seats for Justices Surya Kant, Dipankar Datta and Ujjal Bhuyan were fixed.
Mr. Bhushan appeared in a petitioner’s NGO, questioning the appointment process, and he said the issue had been covered by the 2023 Constitutional Trial ruling.
Justice Kant told Mr. Bushan that the court will handle the matter on May 14 by canceling special bench matters on the above date.
Mr Bushan said that although the matter has been listed as a business on the bench, they urged the court to take it on the board.
Justice Kant said the bench will involve several parts of the matter involving land acquisition on Wednesday.
On March 19, the Supreme Court had amended a batch of appeals on April 16 that challenged the appointment of the CEC and the Election Commissioner under the 2023 law.
Mr. Bhushan, who has participated in the Petitioner NGO Democratic Reform Association, had previously told the court that the matter involved a brief legal question – whether the 2023 constitutional judgment should be followed to appoint the CEC and ECS through a panel involving opposition leaders, the Chief Justice of India and the Chief Minister of the 2023 Law or the 2023 Law.
He has argued that the government’s appointment of new CECs and ECs under the 2023 law is “mocking democracy.”
On February 17, the government appointed EC Gyanesh Kumar as the next CEC.
Mr Kumar is the first CEC to be appointed under the new law and his term will last until January 26, 2029, the timeline for the EC is expected to announce the next Lok Sabha election.
Vivek Joshi was a Haryana-Cadre IAS official in 1989 and was appointed as the election commissioner.
Mr. Josh (58) will serve in the polling team until 2031.
By law, the CEC or EC retires at the age of 65, or may serve on the polling team for six years.
On March 15, 2024, the Supreme Court refused to appoint the new ECS under the 2023 law that excluded the CJI from the selection panel and postponed the hearing under a batch of requests for the appointment.
The Supreme Court told the petitioner that the 2 March 2023 judgment guided a three-member group consisting of the Prime Minister, opposition leaders and the CJI until the law was enacted by the parliament.
The Supreme Court’s ruling ruled that appointing ECS and CEC in the hands of executives would undermine the health and free and fair elections of the country’s democracy.
NGOs questioned CJI’s exclusion and said the Election Commission should be isolated from “politics” and “implementation intervention” to maintain a healthy democracy.
The ADR’s plea allegation that the sentence was rejected by the Center, without canceling its base and the composition of the Select Committee under the new law, which constitutes excessive intervention by the administrator in the appointment and is detrimental to the independence of the poll panel.
Under the new law, a selection team chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi recommends the appointment of former IAS officials Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Sandhu as ECS.
publishing – April 16, 2025 at 11:51 am IST
