Senior advocate Vikas Singh, who mentioned the petition, told the bench that under the statutory scheme, decisions of the multi-member Election Commission must be taken either unanimously or by majority.
“The way the Election Commission is functioning, there is serious doubt over whether the decisions are unanimous,” Singh submitted.
The Election Commission has disputed the suggestion that the panel’s decisions were taken unilaterally. It has said that the operational queries and inputs raised by Sandhu and Joshi were part of the draft-stage decision-making process and that decisions taken by the Commission, including those relating to SIR, were unanimous.
The poll panel had also said that letters sent by Sandhu and Joshi to the Cabinet Secretary concerned an officer on deputation and were not related to policy or IT division matters.
The plea seeks judicial scrutiny of the manner in which powers vested in the Election Commission as a body have been exercised. According to reports on the petition, it also seeks relief against Kumar and questions whether the CEC could exercise powers vested collectively in the Commission.
