The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to examine a plea to recall its split verdict on the 2023 law governing election commissioner appointments. The move follows claims of a conflict of interest involving Justice Satish Chandra Sharma. "We will examine and take a call," Chief Justice Surya Kant said today.
Application flags possible conflict involving Justice Satish Chandra Sharma after his son served as standing counsel for poll panel in Madhya Pradesh
The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to examine a plea to recall its split verdict on whether a batch of appeals challenging the validity of a 2023 law governing the appointment of the chief election commissioner and election commissioners should be referred to a larger Constitution bench.
The development comes after the filing of a fresh application citing conflict of interest as the son of one of the judges on the bench, Justice Satish Chandra Sharma,
was standing counsel for the Election Commission in Madhya Pradesh.
The 2023 legislation excludes the Chief Justice of India from the selection panel for the appointment of the CEC and ECs.
The September 23 verdict was delivered by the two-judge bench of Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Sharma. Justice Datta had rejected the Centre's plea to refer the challenge to a larger bench, while Justice Sharma favoured it. The matter was eventually placed before the CJI to consider the constitution of an appropriate bench.
A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana agreed to consider an earlier listing of the review application following a request by senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan.
"We will examine and take a call," CJI Kant said without specifying any time frame.
"There is a split verdict on the CEC issue. We have mentioned an application for recall of the judgment. I mentioned the case before the Justice Datta-led bench. He asked us to mention the matter here because the matter has been released from his board," Sankaranarayanan told the court.
The CJI said he had also read media reports on the filing of a curative petition on the same issue.
Normally, a curative petition is filed after a review petition is dismissed.
"Yes. A curative petition has been filed. That, I think, will have to go in its own
form. Whether it is maintainable, I don't know. Ours is
an IA (intervention application) seeking recall of the judgment. Curative often requires a review," the senior counsel said.
On September 30, a curative petition was filed by Madhya Pradesh Congress leader Jaya Thakur alleging conflict of interest with regard to Justice Sharma.
The verdict delivered by Justice Sharma was in sync with the Centre's plea that
the challenges to the impugned law needed to be examined by a five-judge Constitution bench.