Supreme Court stays Calcutta HC order allowing e-mail nominations for West Bengal panchayat polls

A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra took note of the fact that almost 17,000 candidates have won the West Bengal panchayat polls unopposed and directed the Bengal poll panel not to declare them as winners

The Supreme Court on Thursday put on hold a Calcutta high court order that directed the state election commission (SEC) to permit online filing of nominations by candidates for the rural polls in West Bengal scheduled for May 14.

The Supreme Court ordered the State Election Commission to ensure that panchayat polls are conducted in “absolute fairness,” keeping in view of the concept of “purity of an election in a democracy”. (PTI/Photo for representation)

A bench of Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, Justice A M Khanwilkar and Justice DY Chandrachud also restrained the state poll panel from notifying results of the nearly 20,000 odd constituencies where Trinamool Congress (TMC) candidates contested unopposed.

The apex court also ordered the SEC to ensure that the polls were conducted in “absolute fairness,” keeping in view of the concept of “purity of an election in a democracy”.

“What is worrying us is the high court order directing e-filing of nominations and also the fact that 34% of the candidates had been declared elected as unopposed,” CJI Misra said.

According to the apex court order, the results on May 17 will only be of 65.8% of the 58,692 seats of the three-tier polls, since 34.2% of the seats had only candidates of the ruling TMC.

The matter will next come up for hearing on July 3.

In another order, a division bench of the Calcutta high court of Chief Justice Jyotirmay Bhattacharya and Justice Arijit Ban-erjee ruled that if the number of poll violence casualties exceeds that in the 2013 elections, government and SEC officials who approved the security arrangements would be “personally liable to compensate such loss” and that it would be recovered from their salary, retirement benefits and personal properties.

If the compensation through this route is not sufficient, the state government has to fund the remaining part, the high court said.

In 2013, nine people were killed during five-phase polling, for which about 83,000 personnel from central forces were deployed.