PANAJI
After being slammed by the Supreme Court of India for appointing its own bureaucrat rather than an Independent personality as State Election Commissioner, the Goa government launched a hunt for a new SEC and is settling for the next favourable option -- a retired bureaucrat.
Top government sources said, the file proposing the name of former Goa cadre bureaucrat Narayan Navti as the new SEC has secured the approval of Goa governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari and the appointment order is expected to be issued on Monday.
Navti is familiar with the conduct of elections and served for several years as Joint Chief Electoral Officer under the Election Commission of India when he was a serving bureaucrat.
In a judgement last week, a three-member bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justices Rohinton Fali Nariman, B R Gavai and Hrishikesh Roy, had slammed the Goa government saying entrusting additional charge of SEC to a government official was a mockery of the Constitution.
The bench ordered that an "independent election commissioner" be appointed.
The state government had given additional charge of State Election Commissioner to the state’s Law Secretary Chokha Ram Garg, IAS.
Garg has since, resigned from his post as SEC.
In the judgement the Apex court had also directed all SECs in all States across the country, who currently hold additional charge, step down immediately.
It was hearing an appeal of the Goa government against the Bombay High Court order which had stayed an ongoing election process in five municipalities -- Mormugao, Margao, Sanguem, Quepem and Mapusa -- initiated Chokha Ram as the State Election Commissioner.
The Apex Court also directed that the whole election process in these five civic bodies, including the scheme for reservation of wards, be scrapped and a fresh process be started to be completed latest by April 30.
