NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court last week delivered a serious blow to Chief Election Commissioner T.N. Seshan, holding the constitution of a Multimember Election Commissiori as valid and ruled that henceforth the decisions of the Election Commission would be by consensus, or in case of disagreement, by a majority. A five judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice of India A.M, Ahmadi upheld the ‘Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners (Conditions of Service)’ Act 1994 in its entirety, thus placing Seshan and the two other Election Commissioners, M.S, Gill and G.V.G. Krishnamurthy on par.

Chief Justice Ahmadi said that the concept of plurality was inherent in Article 324 of the Constitution which deals with the composition of the Election Commission. He added that the very presence of Clause 3 of this Article implied that the framers of the Constitution had envisaged a multimember composition of the Commission.

‘The Chief Justice rejected the argument of Seshan that the independence of the Commission and the purity of elections had been affected because he would have the humiliation of being overridden by two civil servants. He added that the present CEC was himself a civil servant before his appointment as CEC.

The CJ also criticized the frequent postponing of elections by the CEC and his other unsustainable decisions. He also recalled that the CEC’s utterances ‘were so abrasive that the apex court had to caution him to exercise restraint on many occasions.

The CJ said the CEC gave the impression that he was keen to project his own image. He added that the fact that the CEC was often in the newspapers and magazines and television could not be denied and in such a backdrop the Government thought a multimember commission was desirable and they were not wrong. Chief Justice Ahmadi said that subsequent events would suggest that the Government was wholly justified in creating a multimember Commission, He added that Seshan was of tension TV commercials and he was reported to have said that he would utilize the balance of his tenure to form 4 political party to fight corruption.

Article extracted from this publication >>  July 21, 1995