Days ahead of the announcement of the schedule for the upcoming Lok Sabha election, Election Commissioner Arun Goel resigned on March 9.
According to a notification by the Law Ministry, his resignation has been accepted by President Droupadi Murmu with effect from March 9.
Mr. Goel’s tenure was till 2027. With his resignation, the Election Commission has been rendered with just one member — Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar. Election Commissioner Anup Chandra Pandey retired in February.
Mr. Goel, a retired bureaucrat, was a 1985-batch IAS officer of the Punjab cadre. He joined the EC on November 21, 2022.
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His resignation comes at a crucial time just days ahead of the expected announcement of schedule for the Lok Sabha election. The Commission has been visiting all States and Union Territories to check for poll preparedness, and was scheduled to visit Jammu and Kashmir from March 11 to March 13.
The development also comes two days before a crucial hearing of the Supreme Court on the electoral bonds issue.
Reacting to Mr Goel’s resignation, the Congress party expressed “deep concern for the world’s largest democracy”.
“There is absolutely ‘no transparency’ in how a constitutional institution like the ECI has been functioning and the manner in which the government pressures it”, Congress general secretary organisation K.C, Venugopal said in a post on X.
PIL petition
Earlier, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), an NGO, had filed a public interest litigation (PIL) petition in the Supreme Court challenging Mr. Goel’s appointment claiming that due procedure had not been followed.
The top court had refused to interfere with the appointment stating that a Constitution Bench had already examined the process and refrained from passing any adverse orders.
On Saturday, ADR chairman Trilochan Shastry told The Hindu: “We are happy that he has resigned”.
The current vacancies in the EC would have to be filled in accordance with the new Chief Election Commissioner and other Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023, which was brought in by the government in December last year.
The Act provisions that a selection committee headed by the Prime Minister, which comprises the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and a PM-nominated Union Minister, will select the members of the commission.
In March 2023, the Supreme Court ruled that the selection panel should comprise the Prime Minister, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and the Chief Justice of India. The court had said the order would hold good until a law was made by Parliament.
Till the SC ruling, Election Commissioners and Chief Election Commissioners (CECs) had been appointed by the President on the recommendation of the government.
The last Election Commissioner to resign in recent past was Ashok Lavasa who quit in 2020 to join the Philippines-based Asian Development Bank (ADB).
A Punjab cadre IAS officer, Mr. Goel superannuated as Secretary, Ministry of Heavy Industry, after more than 37 years of service.
Born in 1962 in Patiala in Punjab, he is a postgraduate in development economics from Churchill College, University of Cambridge, England, and has been trained at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, the U.S., according to the Election Commission website.
He had worked as Secretary, the Ministry of Culture; Vice-Chairman, the Delhi Development Authority; Additional Secretary and Financial Adviser, the Ministry of Labour and Employment; and Joint Secretary, Department of Revenue, the Ministry of Finance.
