 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. We are going to discuss the recent letter written by senior ex-civil servant, those who have retired on the election commission to the president complaining about shall we say or criticizing the election commission's behavior. We have with us Sunder Burra who has been an ex-civil servant and who is a signatory to this petition to the president. What has been the major contention that you have had with the election commission which has forced you normally civil servants do not come out like this. Also against serving civil servants who are in this election commission. What has made you come out in this form against the existing election commission? I do not seem to recall any such instances in the past. You know I think a little bit of background in the middle of 2017 a group of us got together worried about what was happening in the country and in June we wrote a general letter asking that all constitutional authorities should you know go according to constitutional values and norms. Election commission has come under the scanner of your group. You have criticized it for what I can see on nine counts where you felt the election commission has been amiss. So what are the major issues on which you think the election commission has behaved if not in an openly partisan way at least complicit in what the ruling party is doing and not calling it out as it is necessary under its powers. Yeah but just before I answer that I must say that we also had earlier a very productive engagement with the election commission when the former chief election commissioner Mr. O.P. Rawat was there and we had a very positive response on some matter but then we found that their responses over a period of time became rather distant or they they didn't really want to engage with us. And the other thing I must tell you is that many of us have actually run elections ourselves as civil servants you know when you are assistant collector or you know collector and so on some have been chief electoral officers of states. So when when we speak it is also with some experience of these this kind of event but what we felt is that you know today the country is so driven is so divided by what is happening this attempt to pit one community against another one caste against another this religion against so we felt that it is all the more important at this kind of time when you are having elections where where the the language used the sentiments expressed are so filled with hate it's very important that the election commission at this time be impartial neutral and fair so that it serves the purposes of Indian democracy and in fact our recent experience of election commission barring some exceptions has been rather good and when we think of the people who really made a huge mark like Mr. Sation and Mr. Lingdo and so on we want to judge what is happening by the standards laid down by predecessors and by what is expected in the constitution of India we find that the election commission today is is failing on all these counts and seems to be openly partisan if not I mean seems to be complicit in what is going on if they are not taking strong action because let us not forget that even though the model code of conduct is not a legally enforceable statement it is something prepared by political parties themselves in the 1960s and even though the powers under that may only be warnings and notices and cautioning also censure which is the final thing these in the past have had a great impact upon salutary impact salutary impact upon the behavior of political parties and personages but we find even within this model the the moral authority of the model code of conduct is not being utilized the the what shall I say the egregious you know violation of norms by using the army by referring to it as Modiji Kisena the the chief minister the honorable chief minister of Uttar Pradesh does that a union minister Nakvi he does that and then it is it is justified by saying maybe it was a slip of the tongue you know my minister asked for votes in the name of Balakot and Fulwama and that is after having been asked about been told that this is not kosher so there is a reason disregard for constitutional norms and then if you look at the model code of conduct this issue of creating enmity between communities this is expressly but there you know there's a statement the model code of conduct is borrowed the constitution it's bought under the constitution it's bought under the it is an offense under the Indian penal code it is an offense under the representation of people's act it's a corrupt practice so you know why yeah so why is the election commission not taking action under these different sections so you have a constitutional authority like the governor of Rajasthan saying that he is a party worker I mean what can what can we say to that except that it is so wrong you know and normally at some previous time if things had been better I mean when things were better somebody like that would have resigned you know but the president has only sent it on we have no you know we have no proof that some action has actually been taken some mild review can so on you know is one thing but when these things are so shocking to find the election commission silent or so weak need as we have said this is what disturbed us at a particularly critical juncture in our history and in our politics to come back to the question of power this is a very important question because one possible line of defense which sometimes people take is to say that it is a model code of conduct without the force of law article 324 of the constitution which deals with the superintendent's control and direction of elections in India and vests the election commission with great powers and there are supreme court judgments to that effect as well in fact the initiation utilized it in order to enlarge the scope of the election commission and made it much more powerful as a body than it was before and that was recognized by the judiciary as well yeah that was it had the sanction of the courts as well so one of the things that it talks about is uh some of the judgments say where there is no policy where there is a void in law then the election commission can use its penalty power under section 324 now recently we were also involved as you know in that issue of digital platforms and safeguarding democracy even there uh there is a strong feeling that section 320 article 324 of the constitution can be used and certainly you know what is happening now this issue of electronic media here let's forget about digital media just now but coming back to this petition in fact there's a section 39 a of the representation of people's act which also talks about allocating equal air time and there it talks about electronic media it's a very wide ranging thing even if you argue that section article 324 cannot be used section 39 a of the representation of people's act could be used to see that no unfair advantage accrues like for example the starting a tv channel uh calling it a special program of the platform in the sky not not a tv channel after it was pointed out that it doesn't have a license then this nomenclature changed but also the announcement of the biopic full page advertisements apparently of the biopic part of the prime minister at a time when such advertisements cannot be given because we already are entering 48 hour silent zone all these are again what you call egregious violations and they continue to happen in fact dr. Khoreshi our colleague who has been recently also speaking about the same uh subjects he made two points uh one is that apart from this level playing field equal time and so on uh he said that if it is in fact political propaganda which it is then all expenditure incurred on whatever propaganda should be added to the candidates election expenditure you know so that was one point the second point was that if at all such a program is planned it requires the prior approval of the election commission of india as to content because it is uh you know the it is the election season so they are not utilizing uh what their duty bound by the law by the powers given to them they're not utilizing those uh powers and that is what has disturbed us because uh we also feel that uh there is a real worry about the idea of india the future of india what is going to happen after this election it's all the more important to bring these things to the public for last question do you think the election commission the way it is set up the way its commissioners are chosen that needs a change because it's really by the government unlike a lot of the other constitutional bodies which have a little more representative character in terms of who selects the people yeah in fact uh that point has been repeatedly made that whereas for other authorities like uh the judges like the cvc like the cic there are colegiums uh to uh appoint them that is not the case uh for the election commission the chief election commissioner and the other two are uh selected by the government now there's another catch here that even though the chief election commissioner has got constitutional protection the two election commissioners do not uh and they could be removed by executive i don't know exactly what the procedure is but they don't have constitutional protection you see i think what is happening today is an instance of a more general trend which is the subversion of such statutory uh constitutional and other institutions uh which actually are part of the checks and balances in the constitution one of the ministers in the present government said that they should not be subject to the tyranny of unelected bodies now that includes the supreme court that includes basically no check no check now umbedkar i was recently reading he what he said was at the time of writing the constitution he said you know however good a constitution you might have if you have bad people then it's not going to be very useful however bad a constitution you might have if you have good people you know things would be quite different so this is uh our concern our uh worry that uh the very basic structure of our democracy is uh deeply impacted by this kind of behavior of a of an institution which has so much power and could use it wisely and so is responsible for the next government because that's what we elect therefore the long electoral process and its sanctity has really a very important role in our democracy thank you Sunder for being with us we hope to have you more on these discussions now we know about your group and we hope that you will continue to be active on all these issues this is all the time we have for news click to keep watching this and our other shows