CJI to shift challenge to 2023 CEC appointment law to another Bench

Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant on Friday (March 20, 2026) expressed reluctance to continue hearing a series of petitions challenging a law that replaced the Chief Justice of India with a Union Minister in the selection panel for appointment of Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioners.

Chief Justice Kant said that as the petitions challenging the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service, and Term of Office) Act of 2023 relate to the office of the Chief Justice of India, he would not like a Supreme Court Bench headed by him to hear the case as that would likely expose his office to criticism of conflict of interest.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for one of the petitioners, Association for Democratic Reforms, suggested the case be shifted to a Bench which did not have a prospective Chief Justice of India either as the lead or associate judge.

Acknowledging Mr. Bhushan’s recommendation, the Chief Justice said, “I should mark this matter to a Bench where the judge may not be in line to become the CJI. Then nobody can say anything.” The Bench listed the case on April 7 before an appropriate Bench.

The petitioners argued that the 2023 law was introduced to dilute a Constitution Bench ruling delivered in March 2023 in Anoop Baranwal versus Union of India, which had included the Chief Justice of India as a member of the high-powered selection committee involved in the appointments of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and Election Commissioners (ECs).

The bone of contention is the validity of Section 7(1) of the statute. The provision mandated that the President would appoint the CECs and ECs on the recommendation of a selection committee comprising the Prime Minister, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and a Union Cabinet Minister to be nominated by the Prime Minister. The statute, in short, had replaced the CJI on the selection panel with a Union Minister, giving the government an upper hand in appointments to the Election Commission of India.

The petitioners, including activist Dr. Jaya Thakur, represented by advocate Varun Thakur, and advocate Kaleeswaram Raj, who represented an intervenor, had highlighted that the pivotal legal question in the case was whether Parliament could circumvent a Constitution Bench judgment without giving explicit reasons for doing so.

Justice Kant had, on an earlier occasion, orally observed that the test regarding the validity of the 2023 Act would hinge on whether the apex court’s authority to pronounce binding decisions under Article 141 of the Constitution could be circumvented or diluted by a law.