Parliamentary removal motions against constitutional functionaries can become political instruments. Discuss with reference to the ECI.

Article 324(5) makes the Chief Election Commissioner removable only in the manner of a Supreme Court judge — by Presidential order on a motion carried in both Houses in the same session by a special majority [2]. This deliberate difficulty protects the ECI, but it also makes the motion attractive as a political signal rather than as a remedy.

How such motions acquire a political character

• Arithmetic mismatch: the removal notice against CEC Gyanesh Kumar carried 63 Rajya Sabha and 130 Lok Sabha signatures [1] — comfortably above the judge-removal filing bar of 50 or 100 members [3], yet far short of a majority of total membership plus two-thirds present and voting [2].
• A gate without a clock: admission rests with the Chairman or Speaker, who may admit or refuse after examining the material [3]; the nine-charge Rajya Sabha notice of April 24 remains pending [1].
• Repetition as messaging: three successive notices in one year [1] risk turning a constitutional safeguard into routine pressure on the electoral umpire.

Why the accountability function nonetheless remains genuine

• On the judge model, an admitted motion first goes to a three-member inquiry committee — a Supreme Court judge, a High Court Chief Justice and a distinguished jurist — which frames charges and hears the defence [3]. That is fact-finding, not party arithmetic; a functionary cleared there is truly cleared.
• Non-admission, more than filing, is what keeps such charges permanently political.

The deeper problem lies at entry, not exit

• The 2023 Act replaced the Chief Justice of India with a Union Minister on the selection committee, leaving two of three members from the government [2].
• Salary was shifted from Supreme Court judge level to Cabinet Secretary level — fixed by the executive rather than by Parliament [2].

Removal motions become instruments precisely because the ECI's real vulnerability sits elsewhere. A neutral selection committee, an independent ECI secretariat as the Goswami Committee (1990) urged [4], parity of protection for Election Commissioners [2], and time-bound decisions on admission would let accountability work through process rather than posture — securing the free and fair elections that anchor our constitutional democracy.