In a sharp and critical interview, one of India’s most illustrious former chief election commissioners, S.Y. Quraishi has lambasted the Supreme Court for its repeated and deliberate delays in handling the case regarding how CECs and election commissioners are appointed, saying that the apex court has been “highly irresponsible”.
In a 20-minute interview with Karan Thapar for The Wire, Quraishi said that the Supreme Court’s “prestige has taken a beating” and it has “allowed itself to be bullied and run over”.
The former CEC also spoke about the character of the collegium the government has created to appoint election commissioners and chief election commissioners. He called it “a joke on the nation and an insult”.
Quraishi said we now have “extremely bad optics” where all the members of the Election Commission (both election commissioners and the chief election commissioner) are appointed by a lopsided and government-dominated body. The men themselves may be good and brilliant but this is, he said, “an unhappy situation” for India’s democracy.
He pointed out that even when he was chief election commissioner, as far back as 2011, he had publicly said that it would be preferable for the Election Commission to be appointed by a collegium that comprises the opposition and is not weighted in favour of the government.
Quraishi said that whilst the Prime Minister is no doubt right to call India the world’s largest democracy, the way election commissioners and chief election commissioners are appointed is “a defect in our system” and “diminishes us”.
