New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Center to place before it (the apex court) the file related to the appointment of Election Commissioner Arun Goyal. Goyal was appointed as the Election Commissioner on 19 November. Justice K. A five-judge constitution bench headed by Justice M. Joseph said it wanted to know whether there was any impropriety in the appointment of Goyal as Election Commissioner as he had recently taken voluntary retirement from service.
The bench overruled Attorney General R Venkataramani’s objections to the court’s desire to see the file relating to Goyal’s appointment during the course of the hearing. Venkataramani said the court is hearing the larger issue of the appointment of Election Commissioners and Chief Election Commissioners (CEC) and it cannot look into the individual matter raised by senior advocate Prashant Bhushan.
He said, “I take serious objection to this and I object to the court going through the files in the midst of the hearing of the constitution bench.” Therefore, the Court wanted to know what had prompted him to take this step. Please inform that petitioner Prashant Bhushan told the Constitution Bench that he had raised this issue on Thursday.
After this, a government officer was given VRS and appointed as Election Commissioner. While he had filed an application regarding this. Let us tell you that on Monday, former Indian Administrative Service officer Arun Goyal took over as the Election Commissioner. Earlier, he was appointed as the Election Commissioner on Saturday. He had taken VRS on Friday. Although Arun Goyal was about to retire on 31 December.
