The fate of Bengal Panchayat elections continued to hang in balance as a Division Bench of Calcutta High Court on Friday issued strongest of words reprimanding an apparently weak-willed State Election Commission allegedly functioning at the behest of a wily, overbearing Government, lawyers said.
Though the Court would not intervene in the electoral process — apparently leaving it on the Division Bench of Chief Justice Jyotirmay Bhattacharya who was likely to issue a final verdict on or after May 8 disposing of a parallel petition on electoral malpractices and inadequacy of security forces --- the Division Bench of Justice BN Samaddar and Justice Arinadam Mukherjee told off the poll panel for “floundering while performing its constitutional obligation.”
The neutrality of the SEC as a constitutional body had been “seriously questioned,” the Judges said. From the day of election notification the SEC had “acted in such a manner that eyebrows have been raised and accusatory fingers” have been pointed, the Judges maintained.
Even as the SEC counsel argued that it was beyond the Court’s jurisdiction to intervene once the poll process had started the Judges said it was a “wake-up call” for the SEC as its “neutrality has been seriously questioned.”
Normally the High Court did not want to intervene in the electoral matters but it had to do so in 2018 panchayat elections “only in view of the arbitrary manner” in which the Commission had conducted the election process.
“Keeping all the above factors in mind and based on a broad conspectus of the facts of the present case, we refrain from interfering with the order impugned only for such reasons as stated earlier. It is expected that the State Election Commission shall redeem itself upon taking note of the observations made hereinbefore as a wake-up call,” the Court said.
The Court also questioned the reason behind the SEC’s arbitrary decision to declare a three-phase poll on an earlier occasion and then announce a single-phase election subsequently.
Incidentally the elections were to be held on May 1, 3 and 5. However in view of massive violence during filing of nomination and a subsequent Supreme Court directive the poll panel ordered an additional day for nomination on April 9 before recalling the same order within hours following severe pressure from some State Ministers.
Consequently the single Bench of Subroto Taluqdar directed the SEC to reissue the one-day window for filing the nomination and declare renewed “dates” for elections in “meaningful” consultations with the stakeholders.
However, acting under pressure from the State Government which wanted to complete the poll process before the month of Ramadan the Commission subsequently declared a single-phase poll on May 14 leading the opposition parties to move the Court again wondering the reason behind reducing the number of polling days.
The Court also asked the same question as to why the dates were slashed from three days to one when the single Bench had already directed to decide renewed poll “dates.”
The Chief Justice’s Bench will hear a separate petition on May 8 on the alleged inadequacy of security for the election. The petition, filed by the Congress, has sought quashing of the SEC notification to hold the polls in a single phase on May 14. The matter is due for hearing on May 8.