Responding to the Union’s reliance on the ‘constitutional trust’ placed in the Prime Minister to defend the 2023 Election Commissioners’ appointment law, Justice Dipankar Datta questioned whether that trust had been honoured in practice. Pointing to the criminal antecedents of many elected representatives and drawing on Ambedkar and the Manoj Narula judgment, he observed that one is forced to ask whether the trust has been ‘betrayed in practice’. The remarks are prima facie observations in a matter now referred to a Constitution Bench.
