EC again raps govt on conduct breach

Matters relating to the Cabinet are sent at the last moment: EC told cabinet secretary today

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has again written a strongly worded letter to the cabinet secretary on breach of the poll code of conduct.

In a communication on Thursday, it said that sending of matters that had come for clearance to the Union Cabinet at the 11th hour to the ECI for scrutiny would not do. More, ministries could not send the proposals directly to the ECI - these had to be routed via the cabinet secretary's office for clearance.

"Despite the Commission's aforesaid clear standing instructions, issued long back and reiterated recently, which have to be followed scrupulously by all concerned, a tendency is being observed to flout these. Matters relating to the Cabinet are sent directly to the Commission and that too at the last moment, leaving no time to ECI to appropriately consider the issue. It leads to creating undue pressure on the Commission to give priority of such reference over its other urgent time-bound business," went the missive.

"It should specifically be ensured that at least 48 hours is available to the Commission for processing of such reference, so as to convey its decision in time. Otherwise, it would be very difficult for the Commission to entertain such references," the letter said, making it clear that if the ECI did not get enough time to study proposals and subject these to the Model Code of Conduct scrutiny, these would simply be rejected.

However, ECI has recourse only to limited legal remedy if the government simply ignores its advice. In theory, any policy decision the government proposes to take must be scrutinised by the ECI once the poll code 'Model Code') of conduct is in place. However, there are no legal teeth for the Code.

The ECI has already pulled up the government for going ahead with Mann ki Baat, the monthly radio address by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It has said that the script must be shown to the ECI before the programme is aired. It had also asked the cabinet secretary to explain whether the Budget 2017-18 proposals would violate the code and why this could not be postponed.