Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar is in sole charge of the Election Commission (EC) with the resignation of Election Commissioner Arun Goel ahead of the Lok Sabha polls’ announcement, and the Supreme Court has said that it is ill-advised to leave an institution with such vast, exclusive and uncontrolled powers in the hands of one person, however wise he or she may be.
“There is no doubt that two heads are better than one, and particularly when an institution like the Election Commission is entrusted with vital functions, and is armed with exclusive uncontrolled powers to execute them, it is both necessary and desirable that the powers are not exercised by one individual, however, all-wise he may be,” a Division Bench of the Supreme Court observed in a judgment in 1991.
The Supreme Court, in S.S. Dhanoa versus Union of India, said one person at the helm of the powerful poll body was against the “tenets of democratic rule”.
