Chairman or Commission? The Article 324 Question Now Before the Supreme Court

ONE CHAIR, THREE VOTES: THE WORD "COMMISSION" IN ARTICLE 324

Article 324(1) does not hand control of elections to a person. It hands it to a body, the Election Commission. Article 324(3) then adds one sentence: when other Election Commissioners are appointed, the Chief Election Commissioner "shall act as the Chairman." That sentence names the office and gives it no powers. The petition the Supreme Court will hear next week sits in that silence.

The rule as written The Constitution itself says almost nothing about how a multi-member Commission reaches a decision.

Parliament filled that gap by statute. Section 18 of the 2023 Act says three things in plain terms:

• The Commission may, by unanimous decision, regulate its own procedure and allocate business among its members.
• Its business should be transacted unanimously as far as possible.
• Where the CEC and the Election Commissioners differ, the majority opinion decides. In T.N. Seshan v Union of India (1995), the Supreme Court read this collegial model into Article 324. The CEC is primus inter pares, first among equals. He presides, but his vote counts for no more than anyone else's and he holds no veto.

The rule as practiced and the gap In a three-member body, two members make a majority.

That is why the reported record matters so much. The Indian Express has reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi recorded objections at least 14 times over ten months to decisions and orders on the Special Intensive Revision.

If the same two members objected to the same decision, the statute points toward their view prevailing. An order issued anyway in the Commission's name would then face a hard question: whose decision was it? The petition frames this as a question of title, not misconduct.

It does not say the CEC misused the Chairman's powers. It says the Chairman has no individual title to the Commission's collective power at all and so it seeks quo warranto: show the authority under which you acted. Three things are genuinely unsettled:

1. Whether an objection is a vote. An EC recording disagreement on a file is not automatically a formal majority decision the other way. The original records the petitioner wants produced would settle what actually happened.
2. Whether business was delegated. Section 18 lets the Commission allocate work among members, but only by unanimous decision. If there was a valid allocation, the CEC could act alone within it. If there was none, he could not.
3. What a Chairman may do alone. Neither Article 324(3) nor Section 18 lists powers that belong to the Chairman individually. Convening, presiding and signing are clearly his. Deciding is not. None of this has been tested in court. The petition is unheard and the allegations about how the Commission functioned remain allegations.

Why the

stakes are larger than one office The SIR decides who stays on the electoral roll, which is the gate to the franchise under Article 326. If the relief sought is ever granted, it goes well beyond the fate of one officer. It would mean decisions that shape the electorate could be valid only when the full Commission stands behind them.