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Issues: (i) Whether the mode of appointment of the Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioners under Article 324(2) required replacement by a broad-based committee until Parliament enacts a law. (ii) Whether the protection against removal available to the Chief Election Commissioner should be extended to other Election Commissioners, and whether their service conditions should be insulated from disadvantageous variation. (iii) Whether the Election Commission should be provided with an independent secretariat and its expenditure charged on the Consolidated Fund of India.
Issue (i): Whether the mode of appointment of the Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioners under Article 324(2) required replacement by a broad-based committee until Parliament enacts a law.
Analysis: The constitutional text was read with the Constituent Assembly debates, which showed a clear concern that appointment of the Election Commission should not remain exclusively with the Executive. The Court found that the phrase making appointment "subject to the provisions of any law made in that behalf by Parliament" reflected an intended legislative intervention that never came. It held that the existing practice left a constitutional vacuum affecting the independence of the institution and the integrity of free and fair elections. The Court further held that judicial intervention was justified to the limited extent of filling the gap until Parliament acts.
Conclusion: The appointment of the Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioners is to be made by the President on the basis of the advice of a committee consisting of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, and, where there is no recognised Leader of Opposition, the leader of the largest opposition party in the Lok Sabha, together with the Chief Justice of India, until Parliament enacts a law.
Issue (ii): Whether the protection against removal available to the Chief Election Commissioner should be extended to other Election Commissioners, and whether their service conditions should be insulated from disadvantageous variation.
Analysis: The Court held that Article 324(5) gives the Chief Election Commissioner a distinct constitutional protection: removal only in the manner applicable to a Judge of the Supreme Court, and no variation of service conditions to his disadvantage. It distinguished the position of other Election Commissioners, holding that the second proviso operates as a separate and limited safeguard tied to the Chief Election Commissioner's recommendation. While the Court declined to rewrite the proviso by judicial fiat, it acknowledged the force of the argument that the independence of the Election Commission would be better secured if Parliament extended similar protection to all members.
Conclusion: The request for identical constitutional protection to all Election Commissioners was not accepted as a matter of direct adjudicatory substitution, but the Court indicated that Parliament should consider extending such protection and keeping service conditions insulated from adverse variation.
Issue (iii): Whether the Election Commission should be provided with an independent secretariat and its expenditure charged on the Consolidated Fund of India.
Analysis: The Court accepted that financial and administrative dependence can undermine institutional independence. It noted the Election Commission's own repeated recommendations for an insulated secretariat and charged expenditure, and recognised that such structural support would strengthen neutrality and effective functioning. The Court refrained from prescribing details of budgetary design, treating the matter as one of urgent institutional reform best addressed by the political branches.
Conclusion: The Court made a strong appeal that Parliament and the Union should consider creating a permanent independent secretariat for the Election Commission and charging its expenditure on the Consolidated Fund of India.
Final Conclusion: The petitions succeeded in part: the Court supplied an interim appointment mechanism for the Election Commission, preserved the existing constitutional safeguard for the Chief Election Commissioner, and urged structural reforms to secure the Commission's independence until Parliament legislates.
Ratio Decidendi: Where the Constitution contemplates a law to govern the appointment of a constitutional authority but Parliament has left the field unoccupied, and the existing executive arrangement threatens institutional independence central to free and fair elections, the Court may lay down interim norms to fill the constitutional vacuum until legislation is enacted.
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