Author: Editorial
Publication: Free Press Journal
Date: February 4, 2008
The reported move to amend the law only to
protect the controversial Election Commissioner Navin Chawla is malafide.
It must be nipped in the bud. The Prime Minister had earlier abdicated his
responsibility when he allowed the Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss to enact
a law aimed only at the dismissal of Dr. P. Venugopal, the widely-respected
Director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.
The proposed save-Chawla law is of a piece
with that individual-specific law sponsored by Ramadoss and endorsed by Manmohan
Singh. In this case, the misdeed is to be done by the Law Minister Hansraj
Bhardwaj. On Friday, Bhardwaj revealed his intention to move a constitutional
amendment for bringing election commissioners at par with Chief Election Commissioner.
Denying that the move had anything to do with
the NDA petition against Chawla given to the CEC N. Gopalaswamy, the minister
countered that the said amendment was proposed by the then CEC T S Krishnamoorthy
in July 2004. Krishnamoothy had sought "very same protection and safeguards
in the matter of removeability of ECs from office as is available to CEC."
Bhardwaj did not say why he had slept over
that recommendation for well over three years and why he had now suddenly
thought of acting upon it. But it was clear that the need to protect Chawla
against likely action against him by the CEC was the immediate objective.
The Constitution provides for the removal of CEC through a well-defined impeachment
process by parliament.
As for the Ecs, they can be removed on the
recommendation of the CEC. Last week a delegation of NDA leaders submitted
a petition seeking the removal of Chawla to Gopalaswamy. While disposing of
the plea of the BJP leader Jaswant Singh for the removal of Chawla, the apex
court had taken due note of the CEC submission that he was free to recommend
the dismissal of an EC in case there was a tenable case against him.
The court then directed the petitioner to
seek remedial action against Chawla from the CEC. The NDA petition detailed
various acts of omission and commission of Chawla, arguing that he can neither
be independent nor fair as an election commissioner. Given Chawla's mediocre
record in service, his servility towards Congressmen and money transactions
of his private trusts with Congress leaders, it is fair to assume that he
cannot discharge his functions as an all-important watchdog of the electoral
process independently and impartially.
As we noted in this space on Friday, ideally
Chawla should have volunteered his resignation following scandalous public
disclosures of his trusts. Confidence in his ability to discharge his official
functions independently and fairly has been fully eroded after his close ties
with the ruling Congress Party were laid bare. His record as a hatchet man
of Sanjay Gandhi in the Emergency too is a blot on his reputation.
Therefore it would have been fit and proper
if he himself had opted out of the Commission. But now that Gopalaswamy is
due to retire shortly and Chawla is next in line to become the CEC, the matter
of his removal has acquired urgency. Either Chawla reads the writing on the
wall and resigns or else Gopalaswamy must do the right thing by the Constitution
and seek his removal in the larger interest of Indian democracy. We cannot
have someone who is suspected to be a factotum of a political party presiding
over as the boss of Nirvachan Sadan. Chawla must go.
