During the hearing, the bench questioned the haste with which the Centre went ahead with the appointment of the two new election commissioners.”Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done. We are dealing with the Representation of the People Act, which according to me, is the highest after the Constitution. Why leave any scope for the public to raise an eyebrow?” Justice Datta told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the Centre.Observing that it cannot be denied that election commissioners should be independent and fair, the bench said polls have been held since Independence and the country has had very good election commissioners in the past.It told advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the NGO, “Earlier ECs were appointed by executive decisions and now they are being appointed as per the parliamentary law. There cannot be framing of law in a particular way.”Bhushan had alleged non-compliance of the 2023 apex court verdict, saying the Chief Justice of India has been dropped from the selection panel.Bhushan said there will not be any chaos and the new ECs may be allowed to work for some time as elections are round the corner.Thereafter, fresh appointments can be made by a panel that includes the CJI, as was proposed in the 2023 verdict, he said.The top court also pointed out, “The 2023 verdict nowhere says there has to be a member from the judiciary in the selection panel for EC appointment.”It said the intent of the 2023 verdict, which proposed a selection panel comprising the prime minister, the Leader of Opposition, and the Chief Justice of India, was for a period till Parliament enacts a law.The verdict was intended to nudge Parliament to enact law as there was a “vacuum” and it didn’t say what kind of law should be made, the bench said.The bench said it prima facie agrees with Bhushan’s submission that the procedure adopted for the appointment of the two new ECs was not transparent.While questioning the procedure adopted by the Centre, it told Mehta that the selection committee should have been given more time to apply its mind to the appointment of the new ECs.”The selection committee for appointment of election commissioners should have been given a fair share of time to understand the background of candidates,” the bench observed.It said, “For one vacancy, there were five names. For two, you send only six. Why not 10? This is what appears from the record. They can consider 200 names, but what is the time given, maybe 2 hours. 200 names to be considered in 2 hours? You could have been transparent,” the bench said, after Mehta pointed out that the two new election commissioners were among the six short-listed from a pool of 200 names suggested by a search panel.On Bhushan pointing out to the bench that the meeting of the selection committee was advanced, Justice Khanna told Mehta that the Centre should have deferred the meeting by a day or two as it knew about the pendency of the matter in the apex court.”The manner in which it was done could have been avoided. The matter was sub-judice. Plus, a member of the selection committee had also said that he needed some time to go through the names,” Justice Khanna said.Leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury had said he needed some time to go through the 200 names.The bench said it is not questioning the credentials of the election commissioners appointed but the procedure.
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