New Delhi, India: India's Election Commission, the constitutional body entrusted with safeguarding the world's largest democratic exercise, is facing an unusual public reckoning. Former commissioners and even a sitting Chief Election Commissioner have broken with tradition to criticize the institution's internal decision-making, calling recent procedural lapses "wrong and illegal." The controversy has been compounded by a pointed observation from a sitting Supreme Court judge, who suggested that commissioners appointed under the current selection process, which gives the Prime Minister significant influence, cannot be expected to act independently of him.

Together, the disclosures paint a picture of an institution under strain: one where major decisions may have been taken without the majority consensus the law requires, where sitting commissioners say they were kept in the dark, and where the very process of choosing who sits on the commission is now before the country's highest court.

Decisions Without a Majority

At the center of the dispute is a basic procedural question: did the Election Commission of India (ECI) make certain major decisions without the majority vote that statute requires? Former election commissioners, along with a former Chief Election Commissioner, have said publicly that any decision taken outside majority rule would be improper on its face. They have demanded that the commission produce detailed documentary evidence showing exactly how disputed decisions were reached, who was consulted, and when.

The demand for a paper trail is significant. The Election Commission is a three-member body, and its credibility rests partly on the presumption that decisions reflect genuine deliberation among all three commissioners rather than being pushed through by one dominant voice. Former officials characterizing recent practices as "wrong and illegal" is a rare and serious rebuke from within the ranks of an institution that has historically guarded its internal workings closely.

Two Commissioners, Fourteen Objections, No Answers

The abstract concern about majority rule has taken on concrete form in the accounts of two sitting commissioners, identified as Sandhu and Joshi, who say they were excluded from major decision-making processes altogether. According to their account, the two were not informed about significant decisions before they were made. When they subsequently raised objections, filing fourteen separate formal objections in total, they say they received no clarity on how, or whether, those objections would be addressed.

The real issue is not that commissioners disagreed. Disagreement among commissioners is not inherently problematic, and can even be healthy for an institution meant to check its own excesses. The deeper problem, as described by Sandhu and Joshi, is that they were not told about major decisions in the first place, and once they objected, there was no established process dictating what should happen next.

That absence of process is arguably more troubling than any single disputed decision. An institution can survive disagreement among its members. It is harder to sustain public confidence when there is no clear mechanism for resolving that disagreement, and when the commissioners tasked with overseeing the fairness of elections cannot get answers about how their own commission operates.

A Judge Questions the Selection Process Itself

The internal disputes have converged with a separate, and arguably more fundamental, challenge: how commissioners are chosen in the first place. The Supreme Court has referred petitions challenging the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023, to the Chief Justice of India, so that a constitution bench can take up the matter and avoid further delay.

In remarks made during the proceedings, Justice Dipankar Datta questioned whether commissioners nominated by the Prime Minister could realistically be expected to act against his wishes once in office. The observation goes to the heart of the petitions being challenged: critics argue that the 2023 law, which restructured the selection committee for choosing election commissioners, tilts the process in favor of the executive and undermines the independence the Constitution intended the commission to have.

India's Election Commission was designed as an independent check on the government of the day, responsible for conducting free and fair elections across a country of nearly a billion voters. Its credibility depends on the public perception, as much as the legal reality, that commissioners will act without fear or favor toward whichever party holds power. A sitting judge publicly voicing doubt about that independence, in the context of a case specifically about how commissioners are appointed, adds judicial weight to concerns that had previously been raised mostly by opposition politicians and civil society groups.

Why It Matters

These are not isolated controversies. They compound one another. If commissioners are appointed through a process seen as favoring the executive, and if those same commissioners can then take major decisions without transparent majority consensus, the institution's claim to independence becomes harder to defend on both fronts at once.

The stakes extend well beyond internal commission politics. India holds elections at a scale and frequency that make the Election Commission one of the most consequential institutions in the country's democracy. Any erosion of confidence in its impartiality, whether through opaque decision-making or a compromised appointment process, has implications for how citizens, political parties, and international observers assess the fairness of India's electoral outcomes ahead of future polls.

The pending constitution bench review of the 2023 appointments law now carries added significance. It will not only determine the legal validity of the current selection mechanism but may also shape whether India's Election Commission can credibly reassure the public that its decisions, and the people who make them, remain free of political influence.