SC questions appointment process of EC Arun Goel, AG for Centre asks court to hold its mouth
New Delhi (PTI): The Supreme Court on Thursday questioned the process adopted for appointing Arun Goel as an Election Commissioner (EC), and said his file got clearances in "haste" and with "tearing hurry".
As the apex court observed that the file pertaining to Goel's appointment was cleared with "lightning speed", the Centre through Attorney General R Venkataramani asked the court to "hold its mouth" and requested it to look into the matter in its entirety.
"What kind of evaluation is this? Although, we are not questioning the merits of Arun Goel's credentials but the process," a five-judge Constitution bench headed by Justice K M Joseph said.
The top-most law officer told the bench, which was making a volley a comments on the issue, "Please hold your mouth for a while. I request to look into the issue in entirety".
It perused the original file of Goel's appointment as an EC, which was placed before the bench by the Centre in pursuance of Wednesday's direction given by the top court.
The bench said 1985-batch IAS officer Goel got voluntary retirement from service in a single day, his file was cleared by the Law Ministry in a single day, a panel of four names were put up before the prime minister and Goel's name got the nod from the President within 24 hours.
The bench is hearing a batch of pleas seeking a collegium-like system for the appointment of ECs and the Chief Election Commissioner.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
