The NGO challenges the validity of a provision of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023.
Lok Sabha polls will be held in seven phases beginning from April 19 and the counting of votes will take place on June 4 for the world's biggest election exercise in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi will bid for a third consecutive term.
Sources said the selection committee could meet either on March 13 or 14 depending on the convenience of the members and the appointments are likely to be made by March 15.
It also said over two crore young electors in age group of 18 to 29 years have been added in the voters' list.
A voter turnout of 65.79 per cent was recorded in the just-concluded Lok Sabha elections, but the final figures may change as it does not include postal ballots, the Election Commission said on Thursday.
Bypolls are due in Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Telangana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu
The assertion comes in the wake of the Supreme Court directing the SBI to submit the details of the electoral bonds purchased since April 12, 2019 to the EC.
Seeking to ensure a level-playing field in the Lok Sabha elections, the Election Commission on Monday ordered the removal of home secretaries of Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, sources said.
His tenure was till December 5, 2027, and he would have become Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) after incumbent Rajiv Kumar retired in February next year.
'They have been found wanting in taking stern measures to stop this because the Constitution has given them this authority and the power to ensure a free and fair election in the country.'
A vacancy will arise in the three-member poll panel when Election Commissioner Anup Chandra Pandey demits office on February 14.
'There are many smaller parties, which in the age of ballot paper, might not have come into existence'
The Election Commission on Monday said the voter turnout in Jammu and Kashmir this time was the highest in a Lok Sabha election in the last 35 years with the Kashmir Valley witnessing a 'massive' 30 percentage point jump in poll participation compared to 2019.
Political leaders and candidates should not use children for campaign activities in any manner including holding a child in their arms, carrying a child in a vehicle or in rallies, the poll watchdog said.
President Droupadi Murmu, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud, Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi and several other famous faces were seen at polling booths, exercising their franchise in the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha polls on Saturday.
Eleven states and Union territories -- Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, Telangana, Gujarat, Punjab, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand -- had a voter turnout lower than the national average of 67.40 percent in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
The commission said enforcement authorities have seized Rs 4,650 crore even before polling begins for the Lok Sabha elections and it is the "higher than total seizures" made in the 2019 polls
Pandey's retirement comes days before the Election Commission is to announce the schedule for the Lok Sabha polls.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi led-NDA government in its third term must tackle the problem of unemployment in the country, especially in the unorganised sector and in small and medium enterprises, former NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar said on Monday. Kumar also emphasised that the government now must finalise the four labour codes as it has been delayed beyond expectations. "We must recognise that post-COVID economic recovery has been a K-shaped recovery.
Taking potshots at the Bharatiya Janata Party, some opposition leaders also wondered if Goel resigned to contest the Lok Sabha polls on its ticket like former Calcutta high court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay.
'If, as happened in Baramulla during the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the youth in the Valley get triggered enough to jump into the wider fray, the end result would be difficult to predict, especially as the state's post-August 5, 2019 political format remains substantially fragmented and foggy,' points out Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the veteran commentator on Kashmir affairs.
The Election Commission Wednesday directed the leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party to refrain from making speeches on religious and communal lines, and opposition Congress from potentially divisive statements on the socioeconomic composition of the armed forces.
The elections will begin on April 19 followed by subsequent phases on April 26, May 7, May 13, May 20, May 25 and June 1.
The Bihar Police's Economic Offences Unit, which is probing the alleged National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (Undergraduate) (NEET-UG) paper leak case, on Saturday claimed to have obtained reference question papers of the test conducted by National Testing Agency (NTA) and planned to compare these with documents recovered from a flat in Patna during a search operation last month.
The opposition parties and some former CECs had opposed the move, saying it will go against the independence of the institution.
other polls being held in the union territory, CEC Rajiv Kumar said.
West Bengal Governor CV Ananda Bose has also appealed to political parties and people from all walks of life to come together and organise a 'peace visit' to trouble-torn Sandeshkhali in North 24 Parganas district to show solidarity with the aggrieved women.
The first time the Election Commission has taken cognisance of a model code of conduct complaint against a sitting prime minister.
Addressing reporters at his residence soon after the meeting ended, Chowdhury said six names came up before the panel for the selection of the two ECs and the names of Sandhu and Kumar were finalised by a majority of members of the high-powered panel.
Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the Election Commission on Friday asked parties and their leaders to refrain from seeking votes on the basis of caste, religion and language, and not insult the devotee-deity relation or make any suggestion of a divine censure.
The bench asked senior advocate Vikas Singh, appearing for Congress leader Jaya Thakur, who sought a stay on the new law, to serve a copy of the petition to the Centre's counsel.
Though electoral verdicts have historically been accepted, even though grudgingly, by all parties, there has been a sharper edge to the questions being raised by Opposition parties this time over the polling process, including the Election Commission.
Two vacancies of election commissioners came about following the resignation of Arun Goel on Friday and Anup Chandra Pandey's retirement on February 14.
In a relief to homebuyers, assets in a real estate project that have been handed over to the allottee would be kept out of the liquidation process of the company, the latest amendment to the rules by the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) has said. The notification dated February 12 said: "For the purposes of clause (e) of sub-section (4) of section 36, wherever the corporate debtor has given possession to an allottee in a real estate project, such asset shall not form a part of the liquidation estate of the corporate debtor." Real estate experts call it a "pragmatic approach" by the regulator. "However, there are many cases where possession has not been given because the property is stuck in insolvency.
The Kukis have already declared that they are not fielding any candidate in the parliamentary polls as an act of boycott.
The Supreme Court on Thursday questioned the Centre over the procedure adopted for the appointment of election commissioners and asked how six names were shortlisted from 200 within a few hours.
The term of the 224-member Karnataka assembly ends on May 24.
The poll panel said the seizures made since the polls were announced on October 9 are over seven times (Rs 239.15 crore) the seizures made in the previous assembly elections in these states in 2018.
All parties in Jammu and Kashmir said the assembly election should be held with the parliamentary polls, but the entire administrative machinery said it cannot be done simultaneously
Nearly Rs 3,400 crore (Rs 34 billion) in cash and other items were seized in the elections in 2022-2023, an increase of 835 per cent over 2017-2018.
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