The “proposed” May 14 date for the Bengal Panchayat elections landed in a limbo after the Calcutta High Court on Tuesday passed a landmark verdict directing the State Election Commission — an alleged “tool” in Mamata Banerjee’s hands — to accept the valid e-nominations filed by 800 CPI(M) nominees allegedly prevented by armed Trinamool Congress cadre to file their papers on April 23.
The order is likely to push back the May 14 election date fixed by SEC at the behest of the State Government — which wanted to conclude the poll process before Ramzan — as it would require exclusive dates for scrutiny, withdrawal, printing of nomination papers and cancellation of certificates granted by the SEC to the TMC candidates that had won uncontested.
Flaying the Commission for failing to ensure filing of nomination by the willing candidates who had lodged complaints of violence Division Bench of Justice Biswanath Samaddar directed the poll panel to accept the valid nomination filed through e-mail by candidates who had failed to file their papers on account of violence and threats.
Apparently the court hinged its order on a precedence where the single Bench of Justice Subroto Taluqdar had a couple of weeks ago forced the Commission to accept the nomination of 11 candidates at Bhangar in the eastern outskirts of Kolkata.
Incidentally the process of filing nomination, scrutiny and withdrawal has already been completed and the court order would require the Commission to re-initiate things.
The court also observed that there would have been fewer violence, bloodshed and deaths had the Commission allowed e-filing of nomination when the Panel lawyer pleaded unavailability of clauses supporting electronic nomination in the Panchayat Act. The court cited the Information Technology laws to buttress its verdict.
CPI (M) leader Rabin Deb told mediapersons, “There is large scale corruption and use of muscle power during filing of nominations.
We could not file nominations due to resistance by the State Election Commission. The SEC did not listen to our requests. Now we are happy that the court has finally done justice.”
The matter is likely to stretch further as the BJP encouraged by the verdict said it would also file a suit demanding similar orders as it had about 2,000 candidates who had e-filed their nomination after prevented by the Trinamool cadres from doing so.