KOLKATA: The Supreme Court on Wednesday expressed its dismay over the State Election Commission scrapping its own extension of the deadline for filing nomination papers for Bengal’s rural polls. But the petitioners, the CPM and BJP, did not get anything else from the apex court as it sent them back to the
Calcutta High Court, which is already hearing election-related matters.
The legal battle over the panchayat poll process will now move to the
Calcutta HC on Thursday even as the
SEC continues with its original schedule for the process, which started with filing of nomination papers and has now moved to the scrutiny of those papers.
The SEC had on Monday decided to extend the nomination-filing deadline to Tuesday, but scrapped its own decision within 12 hours. The BJP and CPM moved the SC on Wednesday against this flip-flop and alleged that the poll panel chief’s volte-face came under pressure from the ruling party.
The state government said the SEC had taken its decision in line with the SC’s Monday directive, which prompted the apex court to wonder about the reason behind the SEC’s withdrawal of its own extension.
But the apex court, just like on Monday, chose not to interfere with the election process, which had already started. Instead, it directed the petitioners to move the Calcutta HC that was already hearing matters pertaining to the polls.
The BJP had moved the SC, seeking its intervention for extension of nominations and also for deployment of central forces during the polls. The CPM joined the legal battle on Wednesday, seeking postponement of the polls till the SEC redressed grievances of candidates who could not file papers.
“We will make the same plea in Calcutta HC on Thursday and hope to get a favourable order. Else, we will move the SC again because the first directive to the SEC came from it,” senior lawyer
Bikash Bhattacharya, who represented the CPM, said. BJP advocate Kabir Shankar Bose felt that the apex court’s observation was significant. “It has made it clear that it is not happy with the SEC’s role. It has also taken note of the view that it is under pressure,” Bose said.
But senior lawyer and Trinamool MP Kalyan Banerjee felt that the SC had acted on predictable lines. “It transferred the matter to the Calcutta HC after coming to know that the latter was hearing an election-related matter. The BJP committed fraud by moving the apex court, supressing the fact that it had already moved the HC on the same matter. I brought this to the HC’s attention on Wednesday and made an application for vacating its interim stay on the SEC order revoking its extension,” Banerjee said.
“We will contest their petition on Thursday. What can the Trinamool do if the opposition cannot gather enough people at the grassroots to file nominations?” he asked.
“The opposition has fielded 70,000 candidates this year. The Trinamool could file only 30,000 candidates in the 2003 rural polls and 35,000 in the 2008 polls when the Left Front was in office,” Banerjee said.
But CPM leader Sujan Chakrabarty pointed out that there were 1,73,600 candidates for 55,982 seats in the
panchayat polls in 1978. “There were three candidates on an average — one from the LF and two from the opposition — for each seat in contrast to what the situation is now in the Mamata Banerjee regime,” Chakrabarty said.
