An Election Commission does not derive its authority merely from the power to conduct elections. Its legitimacy rests on a more delicate foundation: the public’s confidence that the institution conducting the contest is independent of the contestants. Recent developments have put that principle under unusual strain. The Election Commission is already facing questions over its handling of electoral rolls and the nationwide Special Intensive Revision.

Reports of disagreements within the Commission over voter data, enrolment procedures and decisions allegedly taken without the full knowledge of all three commissioners have added a new institutional dimension to an argument that had largely been fought outside the Commission. Now the Supreme Court has brought the question of institutional independence into sharper constitutional focus. A two-judge bench has directed that challenges to the 2023 law governing the appointment of the Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioners be placed before the Chief Justice for consideration of a Constitution Bench.

The law replaced the Chief Justice of India on the selection panel with a Union Cabinet minister nominated by the Prime Minister, leaving a three-member committee comprising the........

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