Setting a precedent

 

 

The Election Commission (EC) of India is a hallowed global institution. It is held out as an example for the world to see, how the three-member body - which derives its strength from the Constitution and cannot be removed under any circumstances except a lengthy impeachment motion - conducts elections in the world’s largest and noisiest democracy.

Events last week also prove just how much the EC and India’s institutions have changed since it became a three-member body of Election Commissioners in 1989. Before that, a single-member CEC could barely announce poll results without verbal missives from the top political leadership of the day.

The soon-to-be-outgoing CEC, N Gopalaswami, turned a new political leaf when he sent a suo motu recommendation to the President of India that Election Commissioner Navin Chawla should be removed from office on alleged grounds of "partisanship.’’ The President has forwarded the CEC’s missive to the Prime Minister. The recommendation has come exactly three months before Gopalaswami superannuates from office and before the 15th General Election this year.

The 'recommendation' came in the light of a BJP petition of January 30, 2008, which listed various allegations against Chawla and demanded that he be removed as Election Commissioner. On January 12, 2009, the CEC sent his report to the President of India 'recommending' that Chawla be removed under Article 324 (5) of the Constitution.

The move has predictably set the cat among the pigeons. Legal luminaries like Shanti Bhushan and Fali Nariman have said the CEC has no unilateral powers to sack a fellow Election Commissioner. "The CEC's power under Article 324 (5) of the Constitution [EC shall not be removed from office except on the recommendation of the CEC] is not a power to punish or get rid of other commissioners," Shanti Bhushan told TSI.

Law Minister HR Bhardwaj, while confirming that Chawla would take over from Gopalaswami on April 20, said the "CEC has no constitutional authority to embarrass or comment upon his own colleague because they are all equals. He is only the administrative head of the Election Commission and he is not the boss. In a three-member Commission, there is bound to be some controversy but you can't remove your colleague for that. Commissioners are given protection from arbitrary removal and the CEC cannot use his power to settle personal scores.” Has it sullied the clean image of the EC? Importantly, what precedents is it likely to leave in the Commission itself, of such open, infighting? The timing of Gopalaswami’s recommendations to the President is regarded significant and raises the issue of political partisanship by serving bureaucrats. Why now, when Gopalswami is already on his way out. His elevation as Election Commissioner came during the NDA rule, after he had spent time as the country’s Union Home Secretary under LK Advani.

Navin Chawla, on the other hand, is an old Congress acolyte, indicted among others by the Shah Commission in 1977 for his role in the Emergency as an official close to Sanjay Gandhi and his coterie. A former IAS officer of the UT cadre, Chawla was Secretary to Lt. Governor, Delhi, in the Emergency between 1975 and 1977, a period which coincided with the deadly Turkman Gate abolitions in Old Delhi. Gopalaswami has cited instances of Chawla taking sides openly on behalf of the Congress.

Informed sources say that with Chawala's appointment as the new CEC now a foregone conclusion with the government preferring to ignore Gopalaswami's missive, there are apprehensions in the BJP about what a 'hostile' CEC could do in an election year. Equally, a precedent like this is hardly conducive for the Commission as it prepares for the mammoth General Elections. For those who have marvelled at how India conducts its polls, this is pure bad advertisement.