The Election Commission (EC) has reportedly advised the Law Ministry to legally empower it to act against those questioning its credibility through unfounded allegations such as those made Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and others of his ilk. The Commission has reportedly called for amendments to the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, to empower it to punish anyone being disobedient or discourteous towards its authority. The letter was written over a month ago and the matter is currently under consideration with the Law Ministry. The EC was constrained to make the move for seeking contempt power after Kejriwal, in an interview, had alleged that two of the three election commissioners were close to the ruling dispensation. He was answering a question related to the office-of-profit case being heard by the EC against 21 AAP MLAs. "One of the election commissioners, A K Joti, was chief secretary of Gujarat under (Narendra) Modiji. The second election commissioner has come from Madhya Pradesh and has been very close to Shivraj Singh Chouhan. So, independence of both these election commissioners is under question," he was quoted as saying. Subsequently, both commissioners recused themselves from hearing AAP cases.