Collegium on CEC/EC: PIL to const bench

The Supreme Court on Tuesday referred to a five-judge Constitution Bench a PIL seeking collegium-like system for selection of the Chief Election Commissioner and ECs, to ensure institutional integrity of the poll panel.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi considered the submissions of lawyer Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the petitioner, and Attorney General K K Venugopal before referring the plea for authoritative adjudication by a Constitution bench.

The bench, also comprising Justice S K Kaul, said the PIL, filed in 2015 by one Anoop Baranwal, required "close look" and "interpretation" of Article 324 of the Constitution.

It said the issue has not been debated and answered by this court earlier and exercised the power under Article 145 (3) of the Constitution, which says that substantial question of law and the question of interpretation of constitutional schemes may be referred to a larger bench.

At the outset, Bhushan said there was the need to have a "transparent and independent" selection process to appoint the CEC and the ECs, to ensure that democracy and institutional integrity of the poll panel can be safeguarded.

Bhushan further said, "Politicians talk about the independence of the poll panel when they are in opposition, but they do not support it when they come back to power."

Venugopal, on the other hand, opposed the plea saying that so far, there have been no allegations of abuse of power whatsoever against any Chief Election Commissioner and persons of impeccable integrity have been appointed to the office.