The Election Commission on Tuesday rejected with a majority 2:1 vote election commissioner Ashok Lavasa’s demand that dissent notes should be recorded in its orders on model code violations. The EC said the dissent notes and minority views would remain part of records as it is the case now.
Lavasa has recused himself from MCC violation cases, saying his dissent was not being made part of the orders. He had dissented in at least six of the 11 decisions that the EC took on complaints against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah for alleged poll code violations. The two were given a clean chit in all the decisions.
The ‘full commission’ of the panel, comprising Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora and two other members -Lavasa and Sushil Chandra- deliberated on the contentious issue, after which the Commission said that dissent notes and minority views would remain part of records but would not be part of its order.
“In the meeting of the Election Commission held today regarding the issue of MCC (Model Code of Conduct), it was interalia decided that proceedings of the commission’s meetings would be drawn, including the views of all the commission members. “Thereafter, formal instructions to this effect would be issued in consonance with extant laws/rules, etc,” the EC said in a statement.
The EC had maintained that since the poll code violation cases are not quasi judicial in nature, they are not signed by the chief election commissioner (CEC) and fellow commissioners, and thus, the dissent cannot be made part of the order.
“Status quo will be maintained. Dissent will not be made public but would form part of EC records,” explained an official.
In a strongly-worded letter to Arora on May 4, Lavasa is learnt to have said that he is being forced to stay away from the meetings of the full commission since minority decisions are not being recorded. In Tuesday’s meeting, Lavasa is said to have stuck to his ground, pressing for his demand to include dissenting views in the orders.
Earlier, in a press statement issued on May 18, CEC Arora said, “The three members of the EC 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 diversion of views as it can and should be”.
Earlier, in a letter on May 4, Lavasa wrote: “The main objective of the MCC is to ensure free and fair elections by providing a level playing field to all political parties and candidates and also to maintain a certain degree of decorum in the political discourse during electioneering.”
Lavasa did not attend any MCC meeting after May 4. In the letter, he enforced the importance of the MCC, saying it “draws its strength and sanctity from the strict, prompt and non-discriminatory enforcement therein.”
As per the law governing the functioning of the EC, efforts should have an unanimity, but in the case of a dissent, a majority (2:1) view prevails. The poll panel’s rules express preference for a unanimous view, but also allow a majority decision.