For the second time in less than 10 days, the Supreme Court on Thursday again refused to grant a stay on the Andhra Pradesh High Court judgement reinstating Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar as the State Election Commissioner.

A three-judge SC bench, comprising Chief Justice SA Bobde, Justice AS Bopanna and Justice Hrishikesh Roy, heard the case on Thursday.

The Andhra Pradesh government had promulgated an ordinance to reduce the tenure of SEC to three years from five years and subsequently removed Ramesh Kumar as the election commissioner. In what was regarded as an act of political vendetta, the Jagan government had removed Ramesh Kumar after he put off elections to the civic bodies citing the threat of coronavirus pandemic.

After removing Ramesh Kumar, the Jagan sarkar had appointed 76-year-old retired Tamil Nadu judge Kangaraju as SEC. Ramesh Kumar had filed a petition in the High Court challenging the government’s decision to remove Ramesh Kumar as SEC. On May 29, the Andhra Pradesh High Court had struck down the state government’s Ordinance reducing the tenure of the SEC from five years to three years. The Andhra Pradesh government had filed a Special Leave Petition in the SC seeking a stay on the High Court order.

On June 9, the SC observed that it was not right on part of the Andhra Pradesh government to play with the constitutional functionaries and that the removal of SEC was not done in a bonafide manner.