State Election Commissioner approaches High Court against his abrupt removal

N. Ramesh Kumar whose 5-year tenure as State Election Commissioner (SEC) was cut short by an ordinance brought by the Govt. on Friday night, challenged it in the High Court.

He pleaded for declaration of ordinance (No.5 of 2020) & the GOs through which V. Kanagaraj, Retired Judge of the High Court of Madras was appointed as his successor, unconstitutional.

Mr Kumar disputed that the Govt. didn't give reasons for its sudden decision & that it abused its power with the sole intention to shunt him out of the top post.

He insisted that there was no justifiable ground to issue the ordinance.

Moreover, the local body election process started by him hadn't been completed due to the crisis precipitated by COVID-19.

Mr Kumar said that the unreasonable manner in which the Govt. decreased the tenure of SEC amounted to encroaching upon the independence of the constitutional body.

Going by Justice Kanagaraj’s taking charge as SEC before the matter reached the Court exposed the Govt’s plan to hush up things, he said.

The basic purpose of Kumar's was to punish him for taking action on officials who cooperated with ruling party leaders in the commission of various irregularities in the run-up to the civic polls, he claimed, appealing to the HC to strike down the controversial ordinance & GOs.

It may be noted that Mr. Ramesh Kumar, a 1983-batch IAS officer, had taken charge as State Election Commissioner on April 1, 2016, in the wake of bifurcation of A.P. 

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