SC dismisses plea challenging appointment of Arun Goel as Election Commissioner

The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a plea challenging appointment of former bureaucrat Arun Goel as an Election Commissioner.

A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and S.V.N. Bhatti declined to entertain the public interest litigation (PIL) after noting that a Constitution Bench had already examined the files relating to appointment of Goel earlier.

"You should have pressed for it when hearing was on," the bench told advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing NGO Association for Democratic Reforms, who argued that Goel’s appointment was arbitrary as made in haste during hearing of the case by the Constitution Bench.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, defended Goel’s appointment and said the Constitution Bench "could have quashed it but it did not".

The bench refused to entertain the plea and dismissed the PIL. Before the Constitution Bench, Bhushan had argued that Goel, who was Secretary to the Union government, applied for voluntary retirement and was immediately appointed as Election Commissioner (EC) thereafter.

He had also filed an application in connection with the appointment saying that though the Constitution Bench was hearing the matter, yet the government made the appointment. The Constitution Bench had then called for files relating to Goel’s appointment and asked the Union government to show the mechanism as to how "he was picked up" as the Election Commissioner.

It had asked Attorney General R. Venkataramani about the "tearing urgency, haste" and questioned the "same day process, same day clearance, same day appointment".

The post of one Election Commissioner in the three-member commission went vacant after Sushil Chandra had retired as the CEC. The five-judge Constitution Bench passed the judgment on a batch of petitions seeking a collegium-like system for the appointment of the ECs and the Chief Election Commissioner. It had held that the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and Election Commissioners (ECs) would be appointed by a panel of the Prime Minister, the Leader of Opposition, and the Chief Justice of India.

The Constitution Bench also had said that it is desirable that the grounds of removal of the ECs should be the same as that of the CEC like a Supreme Court judge through the impeachment process.