A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud considered Swamy’s submission for urgent listing and hearing of his petition relating to the dispute. (Express Photo Amit Mehra)
The Supreme Court on Tuesday termed as “shocking” the thousands of seats going uncontested in the recent West Bengal panchayat elections, and asked the State Election Commission (SEC) to file an affidavit detailing the exact number of seats that have gone uncontested at the zilla panchayat, panchayat samiti and gram panchayat levels.
“16,860 seats go unconstested at the grassroots level…,” Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra exclaimed, referring to a chart filed by the petitioners on the outcome of the local body polls conducted in May.
“We cannot remain oblivious of the fact that such a large number of seats has gone uncontested… Look at Murshidabad. Over 2,600 out of 4,000 something uncontested,” the CJI told senior advocate Amarendra Sharan, appearing for the SEC. The court said this raised questions on the working of grassroot-level democracy.
CJI Misra added that it was understandable if a few dozen seats were uncontested, “but this is in thousands”, and referred to the figures of uncontested seats in districts like Birbhum, Bankura and Murshidabad.
Justice D Y Chandrachud, also on the bench, referred to the commission issuing a notification extending the time for accepting nominations and then withdrawing it.
As Sharan tried to explain, the CJI said, “You are the guardian in law for conducting polls. If nobody is contesting, then there will be no litigation. The fact that there were litigations and it means that everyone was aware of the fact that something is there.”
Expressing concern, the CJI repeated, “what is slightly bothering is that of 48,650 seats, more than 16,000 have gone uncontested”.
As the commission sought to dispute the figures, the bench quizzed Sharan on whether he had the exact figures.
After consultations, the counsel said the figures were more or less the same as in the chart produced by the petitioners and that only the district-level figures need to be verified.
The court gave him till Wednesday to file the table.
Dictating the order, the court also recorded the submission of the petitioners that the total seats at the zilla parishad, panchayat samiti and gram panchayat levels were 825, 9,217 and 48,650, respectively. Of these, 203, 3,096 and 16,860 seats, respectively, remained uncontested.
Senior advocate P S Patwalia, appearing for the West Bengal BJP, said violent incidents took place during the elections and people were not allowed to file their nomination papers. He also provided a district-wise break-up of the uncontested seats.
The apex court had earlier stayed the Calcutta High Court order asking the state election body to accept the nomination papers filed through email for panchayat elections and directed the poll panel not to declare in the gazette the names of those candidates who had won unopposed.
The bench, however, had then refused to stay the poll process, observing that there were a plethora of judgments which held that once the poll process had begun, it could not be interfered with by any court.The counsel for the CPM and BJP had alleged that many of their candidates were not allowed to file nomination papers by the ruling Trinamool Congress, which led to about 34 per cent Trinamool candidates winning unopposed.
The court was hearing an appeal filed by the state election panel against the High Court order asking it to accept the nomination papers filed through email for the panchayat elections. Following the Supreme Court’s observations on Tuesday, opposition parties like the CPM, BJP and Congress reiterated their allegations of malpractice in the panchayat polls.
TMC leaders, however, said the party had done nothing wrong and that the opposition had failed to put up candidates.