Gyanesh Kumar took over as the 26th chief election commissioner (CEC) on Wednesday a day after the Supreme Court agreed to consider expedited hearing of pleas challenging the validity of a 2023 law for the appointment of CEC and election commissioners (ECs)

President Droupadi Murmu on Monday night appointed Kumar, a 1988 batch Kerala-cadre bureaucrat who retired as the Union cooperation secretary before being appointed as an EC in 2023, as the CEC amid resistance from the main Opposition Congress.
Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, a member of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led selection committee, on Monday objected to the timing of the meeting to pick the CEC citing the pendency of the pleas against the 2023 law in the Supreme Court.
Kumar called voting the first step of nation-building as he assumed charge: “Therefore every citizen of India who has completed 18 years of age should become an elector and always vote. In accordance with the Constitution, electoral laws, rules, and instructions issued therein, the ECI [Election Commission of India] was, is, and always will be, with the voters,” said Kumar.
Kumar’s tenure as the EC coincided with the 2024 national polls and assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, and Delhi. Vivek Joshi, a 1989-batch bureaucrat from the Haryana cadre, also took charge as an EC following Kumar’s elevation.
Kumar is the first CEC to be appointed under the law passed in December 2023 months after a Constitution bench judgment in May of that year said a Prime Minister-led panel comprising the LoP in Lok Sabha and the Chief Justice of India (CJI) should select CEC and ECs to ensure transparency in the selection. The court verdict came in the absence of a specific law.
The 2023 law replaced CJI by a Union minister. The Congress questioned the independence of the panel citing the government’s 2-1 majority.
The pleas challenging the 2023 law argued the Constitution bench judgment outlined how the CEC and ECs were to be appointed and the government was bound by it. They underlined that the law violates the idea of separation of powers. The pleas questioned the exclusion of the CJI from the selection committee, urging the court to declare the 2023 law unconstitutional for failing to preserve free and fair elections.
The plea said the 2023 law permits the Executive to dominate the matters of appointment of ECI members, breaching the principle of an independent mechanism for such appointments.
In January and February 2024, the petitioners sought a stay on the law and restrained the government from making fresh appointments. The court rejected such pleas even but issued a notice.
The appointments of CEC and ECs were earlier carried out through the 1991 Transaction of Business Act. The court noted in its May 2023 judgment that the 1991 law lacked objective standards regarding the selection and qualification of the CEC and ECs.