The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that
people manning the Election Commission of India should not be "yes
man" of the government but "independent who can act
independently" even if it comes to taking on the Prime Minister.
A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Justice KM
Joseph emphasised that the appointment of the Chief Election Commissioner and
the Election Commissioners should be "procedure-based and
transparent".
In a hypothetical poser to the government, the bench
asked, "Do you think the Election Commissioner... if he is asked to take
on none less than the Prime Minister, it's just example, and he doesn't come
around to doing it - will it not be a case of complete breakdown of the
system?"
The apex court was hearing pleas challenging the
constitutionality of the present appointment process of CEC and ECs and
contended that appointments were being done as per the whims of the executive.
The daylong hearing on the third day saw Centre
reiterating its argument that the practice of the appointment of CEC and the
ECs have worked well over seven decades and there was no "trigger"
pointing to any acts of the poll panel adversely impacting the conduct of free
and fair election s in the country, for the court to intervence.
Attorney General R Ventakaramani, Solicitor General
Tushar Mehta and senior advocate Balbir Singh, appearing for the Centre, said
that if there is no law prescribing the procedure for the appointment of CEC
and the ECs, then the "silence of constitution" on this aspect can be
addressed by the parliament alone and not by judicial intervention.
They told the apex court that independence of
executive was sacrosanct as independence of judiciary and there cannot be any
outside interference in its affairs of the government.
The hearing in the case will continue on Thursday.
The petitions sought creation of an independent
collegium or selection committee for future appointments of CEC and two other
ECs.
The petitions stated that unlike the appointments of
the CBI director or Lokpal, where the leader of the Opposition and judiciary
have a say, the Centre unilaterally appoints the members of the Election
Commission.
The apex court had referred a PILs to the Constitution
bench on October 23, 2018.