It refers to Om Prakash Rawat being appointed as the 22nd Chief Election Commissioner after retirement of Achal Kumar Jyoti, and the appointment of Ashok Lavasa as the Election Commissioner. A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed at Supreme Court in July 2015 seeking a much-needed and long-awaited reform in selection of Election Commissioners by a collegiums also consisting of Prime Minister and largest opposition party in Lok Sabha. Even the then Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi also publicly favoured such a system which already exists for selection of Information Commissioners and Vigilance Commissioners.
The Post of Election Commissioners must be kept totally unbiased by adopting the collegiums-system for the selection of Election Commissioners. It is indeed unfortunate that in eye-brows are often raised by opposition-parties on the selection of certain Election Commissioners being personal favourites of political rulers having appointed them. But the irony of Indian political system is that instead of inducing reforms as demanded while them being in opposition, political rulers themselves repeat same wrong doings like in case of selection of Election Commissioners.
Madhu Agrawal
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
