SC Declines Stay on New Election Commissioners Appointments

The Supreme Court on Friday declined to stay the appointments of new election commissioners (ECs) under a 2023 law that excluded the chief justice of India from the selection panel.

A bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna, Dipankar Datta, and Augustine George Masih told the petitioners, who highlighted that a meeting for the selection of ECs was rescheduled, to file a separate application detailing this fact.

Rejecting the stay on appointments made in accordance with the 2023 law, the bench stated, “Normally and generally, we do not stay a law by way of an interim order.”

It deferred the hearing on a batch of pleas challenging the appointment of two ECs under the 2023 law.

Senior advocate Vikas Singh, representing petitioner Jaya Thakur in court, asserted that when a judgment is rendered, there cannot be any transgression.

He argued that there was a clear-cut transgression in the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023.

Former Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Sandhu were appointed as election commissioners on Thursday. They were chosen by a panel chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The two vacancies in the Election Commission arose after the retirement of Anup Chandra Pandey on February 14 and the sudden resignation of Arun Goel.