Modi-headed committee to meet today to select new EC:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair the first meeting under the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023 to select a new election commissioner (EC) to replace Anup Chandra Pandey, who is due to retire on February 15.
The new act, which came into effect on January 2, stipulates that the President will appoint CEC and ECs upon the recommendation of a Selection Committee consisting of the Prime Minister, a Cabinet minister, and the leader of Opposition or leader of the largest Opposition party in the Lok Sabha.
Government functionaries aware of the matter said that law minister Arjun Ram Meghwal and the Congress’s floor leader in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury were expected to attend the meeting that will be held at the PM’s residential office at 7.30pm.
The selection process consists of two committees — the three-member selection committee headed by the PM and a three-member search committee headed by the law minister and two secretary-level officers.
Though the search committee recommends five names to the selection committee, the latter is empowered to pick commissioners from outside the list as well.
Before the new law came to existence, CEC and ECs were appointed by the Prime Minister and the council of ministers under the seal of the President.
The Supreme Court, in an order in March last year, called for a law on how the CECs and ECs should be picked, saying no such mechanism existed at the time.
In the mean time, it formed a three-member panel consisting of the PM, the leader of the largest Opposition party in the Lok Sabha, and the Chief Justice of India (CJI).
When the law was brought, however, it replaced the CJI with a Cabinet minister, effectively giving the government a 2-1 majority in the panel.