EC choice: Not all Hunky Dory

The Supreme Court has rightly questioned the tearing hearing with which senior bureaucrat Mr. Arun Goel was appointed the Election Commissioner (EC) on November 19, a day after he took voluntary retirement as secretary in the Ministry of Law. Though the apex court has desisted from commenting upon the personal credentials of Mr. Goel, the entire affair smacks of undue haste in selecting and appointing a key Constitutional functionary.

The Election Commission is the most crucial component of the Constitutional machinery that ensures the institutional equilibrium and neutrality responsible for sustaining democracy. Purity of the electoral process is predicated on a mechanism that is insulated from the occupants of political offices. The appointment leaves several questions unanswered. The post of the CEC was lying vacant from May 15 when the incumbent Sushil Chandra demitted the office on completion of his tenure. It lay vacant till November 18.

The period showed no signs of activity on the front for a full six months. But the whole process was fast-tracked in a day, VRS was cleared the same day, a panel of four names were put before the Prime Minister and Goel’s name got the nod from the President within 24 hours. Lo and behold, Arun Goel took charge on November 21. Inaction and complacency for six months and the superfast action in a day—resignation, clearance, application, selection and the Presidential nod, all within 24 hours—provides ample scope to doubt that not everything is hunky-dory about the affair.

Mr. Goel was due to retire from the Ministry on December 31, 2022 on attaining the age of superannuation. As EC he will be in office for full six years and will be in line to be the next CEC after incumbent demits office in February 2025. He joins Rajiv Kumar and another EC, Anup Chandra Pandey on the poll panel. In a polity undergoing considerable and fast changes, the need for Election Commission of India being a neutral umpire cannot be overemphasized.

The latest appointment seriously questions the process of the appointment of a person who is most likely to head it for over three years. The Supreme Court has done well to call for the file that has witnessed unprecedented movement in a day, something unwarranted in the current context. In fact, a bill had been introduced in the Parliament in 1990 seeking to bar those in the ECI from accepting any post-retirement offices.

The bill was though withdrawn in 1993, but not without highlighting the need to insulate the EC from potentially corrupting influences. Given this background, the appointment of the new EC calls for a thorough scrutiny of the process that cleared his way into the Nirvachan Bhavan.