Ashok Lavasa pulls out of poll panel meetings on model code

 Ashok Lavasa pulls out of poll panel meetings on model code

What’s in the news?

  • In a recent development, Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa has reportedly recused himself from meetings on issues concerning the model code of conduct, pending his demand for including dissenting opinions in the final orders.

Context:

  • In a letter to Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora, Mr. Lavasa is learnt to have said his various notes on the need for transparency in the recording and disclosure of all decisions, including the minority view, had gone unheeded, “forcing me to withdraw from participating in the deliberations on the complaints”.
  • While not denying news reports that Mr. Lavasa had written such a letter, Mr. Arora had termed them an “unsavoury and avoidable controversy”.
  • Lavasa did not offer any comments, saying he was “not speaking to anyone on this issue”.
  • Asked whether he had recused himself from any meeting on the model code complaints, Mr. Arora said that no meetings had been held lately.
  • It is important to note that Lavasa had given dissent notes in at least four cases, in which the Election Commission did not find any violation in the speeches of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah by a majority of 2:1.
  • In a statement, the CEC said: “There has been an unsavoury and avoidable controversy reported in sections of the media today about the internal functioning of the Election Commission of India (ECI) in respect of handling the model code of conduct. This has come when all the chief electoral officers throughout the country and their teams are geared up for seventh and last phase of polling, which is tomorrow [Sunday], followed by the gigantic task of counting on May 23.”
‘No clones’
  • “The three members of the ECI are not expected to be template or clones of each other. There have been so many times in the past when there has been a vast divergence of views as it can and should be. But the same largely remained within the confines of the ECI after demission of office unless appearing much later in a book written by the concerned ECs/CECs. I have personally never shied away from a public debate whenever required, but there is a time for everything,” the CEC said.
  • Arora indicated that the issues raised by Mr. Lavasa would be examined by a group within the ECI.
  • Arora went on to add that “At the last meeting of the Commission on May 14, it was unanimously decided that some groups shall be formed to deliberate the issues that arose in the conduct of Lok Sabha election 2019, just as it was done after the Lok Sabha election of 2014. Of the 13 issues and areas identified, the model code of conduct is one of them”.
  • Former ECI legal adviser S.K. Mendiratta, who worked with the poll body for about 53 years, remarked that in case of a difference of opinion on matters regarding the MCC, the dissent note was recorded in the files and only the majority view was communicated to the parties concerned through an order.
  • The dissenting ruling is made part of the order only in quasi-judicial matters like the disputes related to the Representation of the People Act and election symbols.

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