N. Ramesh Kumar whose five-year tenure as State Election Commissioner (SEC) was cut short by an ordinance brought by the government on Friday night, challenged it in the High Court.
He appealed for declaration of ordinance (No.5 of 2020) and the GOs through which Madras High Court retired judge V. Kanagaraj was appointed as his successor, unconstitutional.
He argued that the government did not give reasons for its sudden decision and 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 initiated by him had not been completed due to the crisis precipitated by COVID-19.
The arbitrary manner in which the government reduced the tenure of SEC amounted to encroaching upon the independence of the constitutional body, Mr. Kumar stated.
Mr. Ramesh Kumar said going by Justice Kanagaraj’s taking charge as SEC before the matter reached the court exposed the government’s plan to hush up things.
The basic objective of his removal 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 alleged, appealing to the court to strike down the controversial ordinance and 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.
