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The petition had challenged Arun Goel’s appointment as being arbitrary and against the principle of institutional integrity. Earlier, in April this year, a bench of Justices KM Joseph and BV Nagarathna had raised doubts about the petition, which had relied on a Constitution bench judgment defining guidelines for appointments to ECI
The Supreme Court Friday dismissed a public interest litigation filed by Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) challenging the appointment of Arun Goel as the Election Commissioner.
The NGO was represented by Advocate Prashant Bhushan who argued before a bench led by Justice Sanjiv Khanna that the appointment was arbitrary and was effectuated in haste. "His files were cleared by the highest offices in a day," he said, adding that the process itself was arbitrary.
The bench also comprising Justice SV Bhatti however did not seem inclined to entertain the petition, on account of the issue of appointments already decided by a constitution bench in Anoop Baranwal vs. Union of India.
A Constitution Bench comprising Justices KM Joseph, Ajay Rastogi, Aniruddha Bose, Hrishikesh Roy and CT Ravikumar had in March 2023, passed directions in a batch of petitions, recommending reform in the process of appointment of members of the Election Commission of India.
In light of the same, the bench pointed out to Bhushan that he should have pressed the issue he was arguing, with respect to institutional integrity before the constitution bench itself.
"Goel stepped down as the secretary, Ministry of heavy industries on November 18, 2022 and his appointment was cleared within 24 hours," argued Bhushan, stating that this would attack the rectitude of the institution that is Election Commission of India.
At this juncture, the bench asked the Solicitor General of India, Tushar Mehta, who was present in court acquaint the bench with some facts regarding the case, which the law officer agreed to do. He further pointed out that the petition had no basis and busybodies often approached the top court for unnecessary reasons. "These are constitutional posts, and this is how they are usually cleared," he said, pointing to Article 324 of the Constitution.
The bench agreed with him and said that the practice of clearing names for constitutional posts in a swift manner is usual.
The bench then went on to reject the petition, while recording in their order that the issue of appointments to the ECI had already been exclusively decided earlier.
Earlier, another bench led by Justice BV Nagarathna had raised doubts about the petition and had pointed out that one could not say that Goel would not be an independent officer and will be government’s "yes man". It went on to state that his his appointment was made as per rule and one could not go back to the system that existed at that point in time.
“You cannot rely on our judgment. Under the law as it stood then, even if the action is arbitrary, how do we interfere?," the bench had pointed out.
Case Title: ADR Vs. Union of India
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