A proposed interaction between sitting Supreme Court judges and the parliamentary committee scrutinising the ‘One Nation, One Election’ Bills has been called off, hours after Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal publicly objected that judges who may one day test the law’s validity should not be briefed on it while it is still before Parliament.
New Delhi: The Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) examining the ‘One Nation, One Election’ legislation will not meet the Chief Justice of India and judges of the Supreme Court on October 6 as it had planned, with committee chairman P.P. Chaudhary stating on October 1 that the proposed visit to the Court has been shelved. The Supreme Court is understood to have declined the committee’s proposal for the interaction.
The committee had listed the October 6 programme as a “local study visit” to the Supreme Court that would include an informal discussion with the CJI and other judges on simultaneous elections. The plan drew objections from the Opposition over the separation of powers between the legislature and the judiciary.
Sibal’s objection
Addressing a press conference earlier on October 1, Senior Advocate and Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal said the proposed meeting would violate the separation of powers and that a parliamentary committee holding such an interaction with sitting judges, before finalising its report on a Bill, had never happened in the country’s history.
His central concern was that the judges in question could later be asked to decide challenges to the very amendments under discussion. Making laws, he said, is Parliament’s right, while deciding whether a law is constitutional is the Court’s duty. At least one Opposition member of the committee is also understood to have written to the chairman seeking cancellation of the visit.
Background of the committee’s work
The JPC, chaired by BJP MP P.P. Chaudhary, is examining the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Amendment) Bill, 2024 and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2024, which together seek to enable simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies. As part of that exercise, it has held consultations with political parties, legislators, constitutional experts and other stakeholders.
The committee has also heard former Chief Justices of India, retired Supreme Court judges and other legal experts on the constitutional implications of the proposal. Some of those former judges have flagged concerns before it, including on the powers proposed for the Election Commission and the federal structure. The distinction drawn by Sibal was between consulting retired judges and holding a discussion with sitting judges who remain part of the Court that would hear any challenge.
Supporters of the Bills, including Chaudhary, have argued that simultaneous polls are in the national interest, pointing to the cost of frequent elections, the repeated deployment of security forces and election staff, and the disruption caused to governance and to the education system.
Why it matters
The episode does not touch the merits of ‘One Nation, One Election’. The Supreme Court has neither approved nor rejected the proposal, and no challenge to the Bills is before it, since they have not yet been enacted. What it does underline is a long-standing convention of judicial reticence: sitting judges generally avoid engaging with the executive or the legislature on the substance of pending legislation, so that their impartiality is not called into question if the law later comes before them.
A constitutional amendment of this scale is widely expected to be challenged once passed, on grounds ranging from federalism to the basic structure doctrine. Keeping the bench at a distance from the drafting stage leaves that future adjudication free of any suggestion of prior consultation.
Bills under examination: The Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Amendment) Bill, 2024 and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2024
Committee: Joint Parliamentary Committee on One Nation, One Election, chaired by P.P. Chaudhary
Proposed date of interaction: October 6, 2026
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