Election Commissioner Lavasa appointed VP of Asian Development Bank

NEW DELHI: Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa had been appointed as a vice-president of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Manila-based bank announced on Tuesday.
The appointment to the ADB post, for which the nominee is hand-picked by the government of India, comes even as Lavasa had over two years of his tenure in the Election Commission remaining and was tipped to succeed incumbent Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sunil Arora in April next year, going by the convention of seniormost election commissioner occupying the top post.
As CEC, Lavasa would have been in charge of conduct of assembly polls in crucial states like UP, West Bengal, Kerala, Assam, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, apart from Uttarakhand, Manipur and Puducherry.
With Lavasa set to leave EC prematurely, the election commissioner next in line, Sushil Chandra, is bound to take over as CEC next year. In the normal course, Chandra would have retired in May 2022 without becoming CEC in May 2022 as Lavasa is younger to him.
This is not the first time that a serving CEC or election commissioner will prematurely give up the Constitutional post. In 1973, then CEC Nagender Singh had resigned barely four months after taking over, and moved out as a judge of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.
Lavasa will succeed Diwakar Gupta, whose term ends on August 31, as vice-president of private sector operations and public-private partnerships and shall be based at the ADB headquarters in Manila. He will have a tenure of three years.
Lavasa was in the headlines during 2019 Lok Sabha poll after he opposed clean chits given by EC to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah in several complaints alleging violation of the model code of conduct. Since the other two members of the three-member poll panel- CEC Sunil Arora and Sushil Chandra- had favoured the clean chits, Lavasa's opinion was reduced to a minority one and as per the rule, the majority view prevailed.
However, Lavasa insisted on his dissent being recorded and put out in the public domain as part of the ruling. This was rejected by EC, again by a majority ruling, on the ground that a dissent note can be submitted by a member only in quasi-judicial hearings, after which it forms part of the final EC ruling. In cases relating to model code of conduct, given the immediacy involved, the practice of recording dissent and making it part of the ruling is not followed as per laid down conventions, it was held.
Subsequently, a series of corruption probes were initiated against members of Lavasa's family including his wife and son by the income-tax department. ED had also taken up investigation against Lavasa's son Abir relating to foreign remittances that allegedly come from a tax haven into a company where Abir was a director.
Lavasa, a former IAS officer, had occupied several key posts in the government of India, including as finance secretary and environment secretary, before being appointed as election commissioner. ADB on Tuesday said that Lavasa, as joint secretary in the department of economic affairs, had worked closely with many ADB projects that had private sector components.