A division bench of Calcutta High Court refrained from interfering in the panchayat poll process
Pulling up the
state election commission (SEC) for "questionable neutrality", the Calcutta High Court today said that the commission that is in charge of conducting panchayat polls in West Bengal had "floundered" on the job.
"This is a wake-up call for the commission," said a division bench of Justices Biswanath Sommadar and Arindam Mukherjee, refraining from interfering in the poll process that was already under way.
Another case was heard earlier in the day by Chief Justice Jyotirmoy Bhattacharya about whether the May 14 poll date announced by the SEC was
tentative or final.
Justice Bhattacharya did not pass any order today, saying he would wait for the division bench order. The two-judge bench was scathing about the SEC.
"We find that the SEC has acted in such a manner that eyebrows have been raised and accusatory fingers... pointed against it time and again. Its neutrality has been seriously questioned. It has floundered while performing its Constitutional obligation to uphold the democratic principles in a fair and transparent manner leading to a spate of litigation ever since the election process was set in motion," the division bench said.
"We are refraining from interfering with the order impugned... (But) It is expected that the SEC shall redeem itself upon taking note of the observations made... as a wake-up call," it added.
The division bench order came on a petition filed by Congress leader Riju Ghoshal, challenging the SEC's April 21 notification which he said was "not in consonance with" provisions of the Panchayat Act.
The notification listed an additional date for filing nominations, for scrutiny and for withdrawal but neither the poll date nor the date by which the election process needed to be completed.
"We fought this case to understand if a constitutional body does not perform its duty, would the court interfere. The court has issued an alert, given the SEC a wake-up call. We wanted that," said Mr Ghoshal.
Citing the division bench warning that "the court's observations on the SEC cannot be used by political parties," Trinamool lawyer and lawmaker Kalyan Banerjee said, "They challenged the notification of 21 April. It has not been set aside".
"The poll process is in deep water, and SEC and government to blame. We will know on Tuesday when polls will be held and in how many phases. We are ready for anything," said BJP's Pratap Bandopadhyay.