The right to vote, which is at the heart of the Constitution and democracy, is at “great peril”, former Supreme Court judge Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman said, expressing serious concerns over the Election Commission’s functioning amid disenfranchisement of voters during the SIR exercise.
Former Supreme Court judge Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman expressed serious concerns over the Election Commission’s functioning amid disenfranchisement of voters during the SIR exercise.
“With the matter now before a larger bench, probably of five judges, to decide whether the law was valid. But meanwhile, these appointments continue only in the hands of the government of the day,” Nariman added. He referred to the Supreme Court’s 2023 judgment in the Anoop Baranwal case, in which the court noted that Parliament had not made a law under Article 324 of the Constitution for the appointment of the CEC and other Election Commissioners. However, Parliament enacted a law in 2023 that replaced this arrangement with a selection panel comprising the Prime Minister, a Union minister nominated by him and the Leader of the Opposition, he said. “Of these 22 lakh voters, some one lakh voter appeals were decided, 93 per cent in favour of the voter.
He said the court had suggested a selection mechanism similar to that for the CBI director, involving a collegium comprising the Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition and the Chief Justice of India. “For pro tem, until Parliament makes a law, we will have these three people who will select somebody independent and impartial,” Nariman said. Can you imagine this was a completely illegal knocking out of the common man, of the citizen of India, in order that a government obtains what it wants,” Nariman said. “And somehow or the other, they didn’t press their right under the new Act, section 18, to say that look, between the three of us, it’s the majority vote that counts,” he said.
