Ex-bureaucrats Sukhbir Sandhu, Gyanesh Kumar named ECs Adhir says he gave dissent note on selection

Six names came up before the panel for the selection and the names of Sandhu and Kumar were finalised by a majority of members

PTI, New Delhi, Mar 14, 2024 : Former bureaucrats Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Gyanesh Kumar have been named as the new election commissioners by a panel chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, committee member and Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said on Thursday.

    

Chowdhury, however, gave his dissent note on the selection, raising questions over the procedure. He said he had sought the names of the shortlisted candidates for the posts in the Election Commission but was provided 212 names the night before the committee met.

    

Addressing reporters at his residence soon after the meeting ended, Chowdhury said six names came up before the panel for the selection of the two election commissioners and the names of Sandhu and Kumar were finalised by a majority of members of the high-powered panel.

    

The appointments have not been made official by the government yet. A notification is awaited.

    

The six names shortlisted were that of Utpal Kumar Singh, Pradeep Kumar Tripathi, Gyanesh Kumar, Indevar Pandey, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, Sudhir Kumar Gangadhar Rahate, all former bureaucrats.

   

The selection panel is chaired by the prime minister. It has as members one Union minister -- Home Minister Amit Shah -- as nominated by the government and the leader of the largest opposition party in the Lok Sabha.

   

"Of the six names, the names of Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu were finalised for appointment as election commissioners," Chowdhury said.

    

He said that "I did not have information about the background, experience and integrity of these people and I did not like the procedural lacunae" but the appointments were made.

    

Kumar and Sandhu are 1988-batch officers of the Indian Administrative Service and belonged to the Kerala and Uttarakhand cadres, respectively.

    

During his tenure in the home ministry, Kumar oversaw the abrogation of the Constitution's Article 370, which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

    

In 2014, as the resident commissioner of Kerala in Delhi, he was deputed by the state government to evacuate 46 nurses stuck in Erbil in war-torn Iraq. The operation was successful with the evacuation of 183 Indians, 70 from Kerala, from Iraq. Kumar, an IIT-Kanpur graduate, is a postgraduate in economics from the Harvard University.

    

Sandhu, a former chief secretary of Uttarakhand, is learnt to have overseen the ideation for the implementation of the Uniform Civil Code in the state. He is an MBBS from the Amritsar Medical College and also has a master's degree in history.

    

Congress leader Chowdhury said, "I have given my dissent note as I had 212 names with me and the proposal from the government was of only six names. I did not agree."

   

He claimed that he got the names of the candidates who will occupy the top positions in the Election Commission just 10 minutes before their appointment. It was merely for the sake of formality, Chowdhury said.

   

"I opposed their appointment. I was called only as a formality and their appointment is also a formality. Had the CJI (Chief Justice of India) been there, then the situation could have been different," he said and added that the 212 names were given to him only late last night.

  

Before a new law was passed by Parliament for appointment of chief election commissioner and election commissioners, the selection panel, headed by the prime minister, comprised the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha and the CJI.     

    

Chowdhury said he did not give any names by himself and only raised the issues about procedure.

    

There was no clarity on how the six names were shortlisted from more than the 200 which are said to have come before the search committee headed by the law minister, he said and added that the CJI should have been part of the selection committee.

   

Search committee head Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal was also present at the meeting.

    

The Congress leader said he gave his dissent due to the procedure adopted for the selection of the election commissioners. The government selected the names of those it wanted, he said.

   

"I was invited to select two election commissioners. But it was a fait accompli that the chosen two will be selected. However, I tried to intervene in an appropriate manner...That is why before my arrival in Delhi, I wrote a letter asking for the shortlisted aspirants," he said.

   

"They have give me the list but it had (the names of) all 212 aspirants. Is it humanly possible for me to examine 212 names to find out the most competent persons among them. So, it was fate accompli," Chowdhury said.

   

He said he was shown the six names after they were scrutinised and selected by the search committee, and 10 minutes before the meeting. "I certainly put out my dissent note specifically," he said.

    

The vacancies in the Election Commission had come up after the retirement of Anup Chandra Pandey on February 14 and the sudden resignation of Arun Goel ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. Goel's resignation was notified on Saturday last.

   

Chowdhury said he attended the meeting as "all feel" that the posts of election commissioners should not remain vacant.

    

He said as "the majority (in the selection panel) is in favour of the government, whatever it wants will happen" and "the election commissioners selected according to the wishes of the government".

    

Former chief election commissioner S Y Quraishi in a post on X said, "Congratulations to Sukhbir Sandhu and Gyanesh Kumar for their selection as election commissioners. Both have brilliant records. Wish them good luck in discharging tough responsibility."