The multi-member design of the Election Commission is meant to ensure collegial decision-making. Examine in light of the CEC and ECs Act, 2023.

Article 324 vests superintendence, direction and control of elections in a Commission comprising the Chief Election Commissioner and such number of Election Commissioners as the President may fix [1]. The multi-member form was intended to replace single-officer discretion with deliberation; the CEC and ECs Act, 2023 codifies that collegiality, yet leaves its foundations — appointment and transparency — unsecured.

How the Act reinforces collegiality

• Unanimity as the norm: business of the Commission is to be transacted unanimously as far as possible [2].
• Majority as the fallback: where the CEC and other ECs differ, the matter is decided by the opinion of the majority [2] — the CEC is a first among equals, with no casting vote or veto.
• Shared procedure: the Commission regulates its procedure and allocates business among members by unanimous decision [2], preventing unilateral restructuring of work.
• Plural membership diffuses high-stakes discretion — poll scheduling, Model Code enforcement, party and symbol disputes — across three minds rather than one.

Where collegiality remains fragile

• Appointment route: the Selection Committee is the Prime Minister, a Cabinet Minister and the Leader of Opposition — a government majority that PRS flags as capable of undermining ECI independence [3]. Collegiality is thin if every member owes office to the same appointing authority.
• It departs from Anoop Baranwal v. Union of India (2023), whose interim committee included the Chief Justice of India [3]; a vacancy in the Leader of Opposition's post can leave the committee exclusively ruling-party [3].
• No disclosure duty: the Act does not require publication of minutes, attendance or dissent, so whether a decision was unanimous or by majority stays unverifiable.
• Asymmetric tenure: unlike the CEC, an EC is removable on the CEC's recommendation [1], chilling dissent.

Collegiality is thus statutorily affirmed but institutionally under-protected. Restoring a neutral third member to the Selection Committee, as Baranwal envisaged, and voluntarily disclosing the unanimity status of major decisions would convert a procedural rule into genuine deliberative independence — strengthening the free and fair elections that form part of the Constitution's basic structure.