Beyond Procedure: Why the Election Commission Must Rebuild Opposition Trust

The Lift Line

A referee who is never overruled by the umpire is not the same as a referee both teams trust. The Election Commission has spent the past year winning the first contest and losing the second.

Why This Editorial Matters for Your Exam

Every polity answer on the Election Commission tends to recite Article 324 and stop at “independent constitutional body.” Quraishi’s argument gives you a sharper analytical frame: legal correctness and institutional legitimacy are two different tests, and an institution can pass the first while failing the second. This distinction transfers directly to any question on constitutional bodies facing a credibility challenge, the CBI, the Governor’s office, even the judiciary’s own contempt jurisdiction, and is a reliable way to lift a GS2 answer above a purely descriptive one.

GS Paper 2: Salient features of the Representation of People’s Act; Statutory, regulatory and various quasi-judicial bodies; structure, organisation and functioning of the Executive and the Judiciary; Election Commission of India, Article 324.

Background and Context

The trigger for Quraishi’s intervention is a pattern of Opposition allegations that, in his assessment, has left the Election Commission’s credibility with a ‘severe beating’, a marked reversal from his own description of Opposition comfort with the Commission during his tenure as the 17th Chief Election Commissioner, from 2010 to 2012.

Article 324’s text gives the Commission wide superintendence powers precisely so that it can act independently of the government of the day; the 2023 Act’s replacement of the CJI with a government-nominated Cabinet Minister on the selection panel is the specific structural change the Opposition points to when arguing that the Commission’s composition, not merely its individual rulings, is now the source of distrust.

The Analysis

1. Two different tests are being conflated in the public debate. Whether an ECI decision is lawful is a question for courts, and on both the SIR exercise and EVM-VVPAT procedure, the Supreme Court has found no illegality. Whether the Commission is perceived as even-handed by all political stakeholders is a separate, relational question that courts do not adjudicate and that only the Commission’s own conduct can answer.

2. Quraishi’s evidentiary claim carries weight precisely because of who is making it. A former CEC who ran the institution, rather than an external critic, describing a decline from an era of Opposition comfort to one of ‘very unfair’ treatment, is a data point about institutional trajectory that outside commentary cannot substitute for.

3. The 2023 appointment reform is a structural, not incidental, grievance. Removing the Chief Justice of India from the selection panel and replacing that seat with a Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister changes the panel’s composition from three broadly independent voices to a 2:1 government-leaning body on paper, regardless of how any individual appointment is actually made. Distrust rooted in composition is harder to dispel through individual good conduct than distrust rooted in a single disputed decision.

4. SIR being lawful does not settle whether it is trusted. The Supreme Court’s finding that SIR falls within the ECI’s statutory mandate answers the legality question definitively. It does not, on its own, answer whether the roughly 47 lakh exclusions in Bihar were communicated, verified and appealed in a manner that left disenfranchised or wrongly-flagged voters, and the parties representing them, confident the process was fair rather than merely lawful.

5. The prescriptive core of Quraishi’s argument is administrable without new legislation. Prioritising Opposition requests for meetings and data, publishing granular and independently verifiable electoral-roll methodology, and building a fast, visible grievance-response channel are all within the Commission’s existing powers under Article 324 and the Representation of the People Act, 1950. That makes the argument a call for administrative discipline, not a demand for legal or constitutional change.

Data and Institutions Vault

Prelims-grade facts:

• Article 324: vests superintendence, direction and control of elections in the Election Commission
• CEC and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023: enacted after Anoop Baranwal v. Union of India (2023); selection panel is PM, Leader of Opposition (Lok Sabha), and a Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the PM, replacing the CJI
• Current CEC: Gyanesh Kumar, in office since February 19, 2025
• Former CEC and author of this op-ed: S.Y. Quraishi, 17th CEC, tenure 2010-2012
• Special Intensive Revision (SIR): upheld by the Supreme Court, May 27, 2026, in Association for Democratic Reforms v. ECI, as within the ECI’s mandate under the Representation of the People Act, 1950
• Bihar SIR (Phase 1, June-September 2025): approximately 47 lakh electors removed
• 24 political parties approached the Supreme Court with complaints against the Commission
• EVM-VVPAT: Supreme Court, April 2024, rejected 100 per cent verification; ordered 45-day sealing of symbol-loading units and post-result burnt-memory verification on written request (within 7 days) from the second- and third-placed candidates

Watch the trap: do not write that the Supreme Court found the Election Commission “biased” or “unfair.” The Court upheld the SIR exercise and rejected the 100 per cent EVM-VVPAT demand on legal grounds; the “unfair” characterisation is Quraishi’s own political and institutional assessment, not a judicial finding, and the two must be kept distinct in an answer.

The Debate

Argument FOR treating this as a genuine institutional crisis. A former CEC’s own before-and-after comparison, 24 parties approaching the Supreme Court, and a 2023 appointment reform that visibly tilts the selection panel together constitute more than routine political grievance. An election management body whose fairness is doubted by a significant share of the political spectrum faces a legitimacy problem regardless of how any individual ruling turns out.

Argument AGAINST overstating the crisis. Courts have twice examined the Commission’s most contested recent actions, SIR and EVM-VVPAT procedure, and found no illegality. Opposition parties challenging outcomes they are unhappy with is a permanent feature of competitive democracy, and treating every allegation as proof of institutional decay risks making neutral administration impossible to demonstrate to a determined critic.

Balanced verdict. Legal vindication and political trust operate on different clocks, and an institution that wins in court while losing the confidence of a large share of political stakeholders has not actually resolved its legitimacy problem. The proportionate response is neither to dismiss the Opposition’s concerns as sour grapes nor to treat every adverse ruling as proof of bias, but to recognise that the Commission’s own administrative choices, on transparency, responsiveness and composition, are the only lever within its control to close the gap.

How to Think About This

The transferable pattern: when assessing a constitutional body under public criticism, separate the legality question from the legitimacy question before forming a view. Courts settle legality. Legitimacy is settled by whether the institution’s stakeholders, including the side that loses, believe the process was applied even-handedly, and that belief is shaped by transparency, responsiveness and perceived independence of composition, not by court verdicts alone.

Run this test on any constitutional or statutory body facing similar criticism: Has a court examined its specific actions, and what did it find? That resolves the legal question. Is there a structural feature, such as appointment composition, that a reasonable stakeholder could read as tilted, independent of any individual decision? That is often the real source of persistent distrust. What can the institution do administratively, without new legislation, to close the trust gap? That is where a mature institutional-design answer should end, and it is exactly where Quraishi’s own prescription lands.

Diagram-in-Words

Takeaway Box

Lift line for an answer:

A verdict of “not illegal” is a floor for a constitutional body, not a ceiling. The Election Commission has cleared the floor; the harder work of being trusted remains its own to do.

Prelims hooks: Article 324; Anoop Baranwal v. Union of India (2023); CEC and Other ECs Act, 2023 (selection panel: PM, LoP, PM-nominated Cabinet Minister); current CEC Gyanesh Kumar (since February 19, 2025); Special Intensive Revision (SIR) upheld May 27, 2026 in ADR v. ECI; Bihar SIR removed ~47 lakh electors; 24 parties approached the Supreme Court; EVM-VVPAT ruling (April 2024) rejected 100 per cent verification but ordered 45-day sealing.

Ethics and interview angle: does a constitutional authority have an affirmative duty to actively cultivate trust among stakeholders who distrust it, beyond simply acting lawfully, and if so, where does that duty end before it becomes political appeasement?

PYQ linkage: UPSC has repeatedly tested the Election Commission’s independence, the Article 324 mandate, and reform of the appointment process; this editorial supplies the sharper analytical distinction between legal correctness and institutional legitimacy that a strong answer on ECI credibility now needs.

Probable question: “Judicial vindication of the Election Commission’s specific decisions has not translated into Opposition trust in the institution.” Examine this statement and suggest measures consistent with Article 324 to close the gap.

Sources: The Hindu, PIB, Supreme Court of India, Election Commission of India

Source: Beyond Procedure: Why the Election Commission Must Rebuild Opposition Trust — Ujiyari.com | Free UPSC & State PCS Editorial Analysis