The Supreme Court on Thursday described as “tyranny of the elected” and “tyranny of the majority” the tendency of successive governments to keep the Election Commission under its control after having demanded its independence while in the Opposition.
“I am reminded of a parliamentarian saying ‘tyranny of the unelected’. Now this statement should be equated with ‘tyranny of the elected’,” Justice Dipankar Datta, heading a bench, orally observed. The other judge on the bench,
Justice Satish Chandra Sharma, added “tyranny of the majority”.
The court was dealing with a batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023, which excluded the Chief Justice of India from the selection panel entrusted to pick the CEC and the ECs.
During the hearing, the bench made the oral observations when advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the Association for Democratic Rights (ADR), submitted that political parties, irrespective of their ideological moorings, clamour for the independence of the EC while in the Opposition but chose to leverage control over the poll body once they form the government.
“When people were in the Opposition, they clamoured for an independent body.
But once they came to power, they stopped bothering about it,” Bhushan told the bench when the court asked him why no law was enacted by Parliament till a five-judge constitution bench of the apex court in March 2023 passed the judgment to insulate the EC from extraneous influence.
Justice Datta was referring to the statement of late parliamentarian Arun Jaitley criticising the judiciary’s actions as the “tyranny of the unelected” while referring to its decision to quash the National Judicial Appointments Commission that had sought to replace the collegium system in the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court and high courts.
“Whoever comes to power is doing the same thing,” Justice Datta said and referred to a BBC show which had referred to B.R. Ambedkar’s regret that within three years of the Constitution coming into force, democracy was not working in the country.