Every five years, roughly a billion Indians are asked to trust that the person conducting their elections answers to no one but the Constitution. That trust rests on how the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and Election Commissioners (ECs) are chosen. Change who picks them, and you change, at least in perception, whose interests the Commission serves. This is exactly the question the Supreme Court has just revisited: was its own 2023 intervention in the appointment process a permanent constitutional rule, or a temporary fix that Parliament was always free to replace?