Former Chief Justice of India and Rajya Sabha member Ranjan Gogoi on Tuesday cautioned a Joint Committee of Parliament about the Constitutional validity of some provisions of the two Bills on simultaneous elections. Gogoi, it is learnt, raised some doubts regarding a clause in the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Amendment) Bill, 2024, which proposes to amend three articles of the Constitution and insert a new one, Article 82A, in order to synchronise the Lok Sabha and state Assembly elections. Appearing before the committee as a part of its consultations with legal and Constitutional experts, Gogoi is learnt to have said that Article 82A (5) may not pass the Constitutional test and gives too much power to the Election Commission. The clause gives the EC the option of not holding any particular Assembly election along with the election to Lok Sabha. “If the Election Commission is of the opinion that the elections to any Legislative Assembly cannot be conducted along with the general election to the House of the People, it may make a recommendation to the President, to declare by an order, that the election to that Legislative Assembly may be conducted at a later date,” the proposed Article 82A (5) says. Gogoi is learnt to have said that the clause can be interpreted in two ways. Former Delhi High Court Chief Justice Rajendra Menon also presented his views on the subject in front of the committee. In its last meeting on February 25, the committee had heard from former Chief Justice of India U U Lalit, who is learnt to have flagged concerns over the legal challenges that could follow from curtailing the terms of Assemblies. As per the Bill, the President would notify the “appointed date” on the first sitting of the Lok Sabha after a general election and every state Assembly that is elected after this date would have its term end along with that Lok Sabha. This would cut short the terms of most Assemblies, paving the way for simultaneous elections. Two Bills were introduced in the Lok Sabha by Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal on December 17, 2024 and were referred to the joint committee. One is a Constitution Amendment Bill to synchronise the terms of Lok Sabha and state Assemblies, and the other a consequential Bill to amend the relevant Acts for Union Territories and the National Capital Territory of Delhi to enable simultaneous polls there as well. Meanwhile, it is learnt that the joint committee will soon launch a website to invite suggestions from across the country on the Bills. BJP leader P P Chaudhary, the chairman of the committee, said the panel was working with full transparency and wanted to ensure that everyone got an opportunity to share their views on the issue of simultaneous polls. Chaudhary said a presentation of the website was organised for panel members and it will also issue an advertisement inviting memoranda from across the country on simultaneous elections. He said elections were conducted simultaneously across the country from 1952 to 1967, when the cycle was broken. There have been demands from various quarters from the 1980s for the restoration of simultaneous elections, said the BJP leader. The Law Ministry had appointed a high-level committee under former President Ram Nath Kovind in October 2023 to give recommendations on how to implement simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha, State and UT Assemblies and local bodies. The committee had submitted its report to President Droupadi Murmu in March last year, recommending amendments to enable simultaneous polls for Lok Sabha and Assemblies in the first phase and then local bodies. While the government introduced the Bills for the first phase, it is yet to take a call on syncing local body elections.
