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Bengal panchayat polls:Supreme Court to hear today pleas against HC order
Bengal panchayat polls: The Calcutta high court had on June 13 directed that the state election commission must immediately requisition central forces and deploy them especially in sensitive constituencies.
The Supreme Court will hear on Tuesday petitions filed by the West Bengal election commission and the state government against a Calcutta high court order directing deployment of central forces for the upcoming panchayat polls.
A bench of justices Surya Kant and MM Sundresh agreed to list the petitions on Tuesday after the state election commission and the state government mentioned the matter before it on Monday for an urgent hearing.
Senior counsel Meenakshi Arora appeared on behalf of the state election commission while advocate Sunil Fernandes represented the Mamata Banerjee-led state government.
The Calcutta high court had on June 13 directed that the state election commission must immediately requisition central forces and deploy them especially in constituencies that the polling body has already declared to be sensitive.
Later, on June 15, it pulled up the commission for “dragging its feet” in requisitioning paramilitary forces from the central government and directed the poll body to immediately send a requisition to the Union ministry of home affairs for all the districts in the state. It gave the state election commission 48 hours to comply with its directive. The order was passed on a petition filed by BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari.
Mentioning the commission’s appeal before the bench, Arora complained that there was no opportunity given to them for filing a reply to the petition and the 48-hour deadline was fixed. According to Arora, it is the job of the state government to make a requisition for central forces while the election commission could only make an assessment of sensitive booths.
Fernandes then brought it to the notice of the bench that the state government has also challenged the high court order and hence both the cases could be taken up together. The bench agreed and ordered the listing of both cases on Tuesday.
In its order, the high court had refused to extend the time for candidates to file their nomination papers in the upcoming panchayat elections, but it allowed the plea for deployment of central forces in the wake of complaints against violence in the state. There has been a series of violent incidents in West Bengal ever since panchayat polls were announced in the state on June 9, taking the death toll to at least six in the last eight days. Voting is scheduled for July 8.
