New Delhi. There is an uproar after a media report regarding the country's Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar. Now this matter is about to reach the Supreme Court. A lawyer of the Supreme Court of the country has sought approval from the Attorney General of India to initiate criminal contempt proceedings against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. The lawyer alleges that he has deliberately ignored the decisions of the Supreme Court related to the functioning of the Election Commission of India (ECI).
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Advocate Brajesh Singh wrote to Attorney General R. on 24 September. In the letter written to Venkataramani, Section 15(1)(b) and Section 2(c) of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 as well as Rule 3 of the Rules, 1975, which govern contempt proceedings in the Supreme Court, have been cited.
Violation of which order of the Supreme Court?
Advocate Brajesh Singh says that Gyanesh Kumar has violated the Supreme Court's decision in the case TN Seshan vs Government of India. According to the decision, the Election Commission should work as a constitutional body with many members and the post of Chief Election Commissioner is the first among those with equal authority and not completely omnipotent. In the TN Seshan case, the Supreme Court had said that the CEC cannot be shown to be more powerful than the institution and the decisions of the Election Commission consisting of many members are the decisions of the Commission and not of its Chairman.
'This is contempt of the Supreme Court'
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He has cited another case. In the 2023 decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Anoop Baranwal vs. Government of India, the constitutional framework related to the Election Commission was discussed. The importance of an independent Election Commission to ensure free and fair elections was stressed. In the decision, the Election Commission was described as an institution which has been entrusted with the task of conducting elections in a fair, transparent and without any discrimination. Advocate Brajesh Singh alleged that ignoring other election commissioners while issuing decisions or notifications in the name of the full commission would be a deliberate disregard of the law declared by the Supreme Court under Article 141 of the Constitution.
Let us tell you that in a report of the English newspaper Indian Express on September 23, it was said that Election Commissioner Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had on at least 14 occasions in the last 10 months objected to the decisions taken by the Election Commission without their knowledge or approval. According to the report, these objections were related to changes in Form 6, addition and deletion of names in the voter list as well as limiting access to the voter list database.