A view of the Supreme Court of India (SCI) building, in New Delhi.
| Photo Credit: ANI
Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar is in sole charge of the Election Commission (EC) with the resignation of Election Commissioner Arun Goel ahead of the Lok Sabha polls’ announcement, and the Supreme Court has said that it is ill-advised to leave an institution with such vast, exclusive and uncontrolled powers in the hands of one person, however wise he or she may be.
“There is no doubt that two heads are better than one, and particularly when an institution like the Election Commission is entrusted with vital functions, and is armed with exclusive uncontrolled powers to execute them, it is both necessary and desirable that the powers are not exercised by one individual, however, all-wise he may be,” a Division Bench of the Supreme Court observed in a judgment in 1991.
The Supreme Court, in S.S. Dhanoa versus Union of India, said one person at the helm of the powerful poll body was against the “tenets of democratic rule”.
“A single individual may sometimes prove capable of withstanding all the pulls and pressures, which many may not. However, when vast powers are exercised by an institution which is accountable to none, it is politic to entrust its affairs to more hands than one. It helps to assure judiciousness and want of arbitrariness,” the top court reasoned.
Seshan case verdict
However, four years later, a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, in the T.N. Seshan case judgment, rather muddied the water with a single quizzical line.
The line in the judgment read that the Election Commission could either be a single-member body or a multi-member body. The discretion was that of the President.
“The Election Commission can therefore be a single-member body or a multi-member body if the President considers it necessary to appoint one or more Election Commissioners,” the five-judge Bench had mentioned.
The Constitution Bench was interpreting clause 2 of Article 324, which said “the Election Commission shall consist of the Chief Election Commissioner and such number of other Election Commissioners, if any, as the President may from time-to-time fix…”
But the Bench goes on to agree with the S.S. Dhanoa judgment that a multi-member Election Commission was perfectly in tune with the plain language of Article 324 (superintendence, direction and control of elections to be vested in an Election Commission).
“The argument that a multi-member Election Commission would be unworkable and should not, therefore, be appointed must be stated to be rejected. Our Constitution-makers have provided for a multi-member body. They saw the need to provide for such a body. The plain language of Article 324(2) envisages a multi-member Commission,” the Constitution Bench had observed.