When Election Commission was rocked by internal disputes | Explained

The story so far: From Sukumar Sen's tenure, during which the first general election in India was held in 1951-52, to October 16, 1986, the Election Commission had only one member: the Chief Election Commissioner. In S.S. Dhanoa v. Union of India (1991), the Supreme Court stressed that under Article 342(2) of the Constitution, the President could fix and appoint as many Election Commissioners as he may, from time to time, determine, though it was desirable to have a multi-member commission. In October 1989, when the Rajiv Gandhi government was in power, the President notified the appointment of Mr. Dhanoa and V.S. Seigell as Election Commissioners to complete the team with Chief Election Commissioner R.V.S. Peri Sastry. The premise was the increased workload in conducting the elections after the minimum voting age was lowered from 21 to 18, but political observers then saw it as a move by the government to hem Mr. Sastry in. The multi-member arrangement was short-lived as the President revoked his 1989 notification after the new V.P. Singh government took over and was not in favour of the appointments made by the previous government. Mr. Dhanoa went to court, which said it was the President’s discretion to determine the number of Election Commissioners. In the current situation, when two Election Commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, have objected to the style of functioning of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, here is a look at the episodic disputes on the panel that have broken out in public.

On October 1, 1993, the President appointed M.S. Gill and G.V.G. Krishnamurthy as Election Commissioners. Ever since, the commission has been a three-member body. The President promulgated an Ordinance, later enacted as the Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioners (Condition of Service) Amendment Act, with retrospective effect from October 1, 1993. The Act explicitly granted coordinate powers to the Election Commissioners, solving a grey area in the Constitution. In the Dhanoa judgment, the court had suggested that this be solved through legislation.