The removal of the CEC is deliberately made onerous. Examine the constitutional rationale and adequacy of Article 324(5).

Article 324(5) provides that the Chief Election Commissioner shall not be removed except in the like manner and on the like grounds as a Supreme Court judge [1] — a deliberately high bar, since the umpire of elections cannot be dismissible by the players. Recent removal notices in Parliament have revived the question of whether this protection is well-designed.

Rationale: why the bar is set high

• Special majority: removal needs a motion carried in both Houses in the same session by a majority of total membership and two-thirds of members present and voting [2] — impossible for a transient majority acting alone.
• Screened initiation: on the judge model, a notice needs at least 100 Lok Sabha or 50 Rajya Sabha members, which the presiding officer may admit or decline [2].
• Fact-finding before politics: charges go to a three-member committee of a Supreme Court judge, a High Court Chief Justice and a distinguished jurist before any floor vote [2], so a CEC is tested on evidence, not numbers.
• Judicial parity suits the ECI's quasi-judicial work — deciding disqualifications and registering parties [1].

Adequacy: protection that stops short

• Asymmetry: Election Commissioners are removable merely on the CEC's recommendation [1]; the Supreme Court held parity needs a constitutional amendment [1].
• Silence on entry: Article 324(5) guards exit, not appointment. Anoop Baranwal (2023) proposed PM–LoP–CJI, but the CEC and Other ECs Act, 2023 substituted a Union Minister, giving government two of three seats [1][3].
• Service conditions: salary moved from Supreme Court judge level, alterable only by Parliament, to Cabinet Secretary level, fixed by the executive [1].
• No independent secretariat, despite the Goswami Committee (1990) [4].

Thus the rationale is sound but the safeguard is incomplete: security of tenure without security of appointment, pay and staff is a partial shield. Parliament should amend the Constitution to extend removal protection to ECs, restore a neutral member to the selection committee and grant the ECI an independent secretariat — completing the insulation that Article 324(5) began.