SC says no re-election for Bengal panchayat polls amid row over uncontested seats

The Supreme Court on Friday turned down the pleas of opposition parties seeking cancellation of elections for over 20,000 uncontested local body seats in West Bengal in a relief for the Mamata Banerjee-led government in the state.

The top court was hearing pleas by parties like the Bharatiya Janata Party and Communist Party of India (Marxist) alleging that only the candidates from the ruling Trinamool Congress were allowed to file the nomination papers. All these uncontested seats were won unopposed by candidates of the Trinamool, they said.

It took note of the allegations and said the aggrieved candidates may file election petitions to challenge the panchayat polls in courts concerned.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and justice AM Khanwilkar and justice DY Chandrachud exercised its extraordinary power under Article 142 of the Constitution and held that the limitation period of 30 days for filing the election petitions, which has expired, would now commence from the date of notification of panchayat poll results.

The court also set aside the Calcutta High Court decision directing the state poll panel to allow the filing of nomination papers in panchayat elections through electronic forms such as e-mails and WhatsApp.

“The high court was in error while allowing the filing of nomination papers through electronic forms,” it said, adding, “no such process is either mentioned nor allowed under the provisions of the Representation of Peoples Act”.

The top court had earlier stayed the high court order asking the state election body to accept the nomination papers filed through e-mail for panchayat elections. It had also said the situation was “grim and grave” and directed the state poll panel not to declare and notify the results of the panchayat body elections.

Earlier, the West Bengal government had told court that the row over the panchayat polls in the state had led to a “constitutional crisis” since the tenure of several panchayats were over and new bodies had not been made functional.

The top court had on August 13 asked the state election panel whether it had conducted any probe into the fact that a large number of seats in the local body elections in the state went uncontested. The court had said that the issue had been bothering it.

The poll panel, however, argued that 33% of nearly 50,000 panchayat seats going uncontested in the state was not “an alarming situation”.

Data released by the West Bengal State Election Commission (SEC) show 20,076 of the 58,692 posts for gram panchayat, zilla parishad and panchayat samiti had remained uncontested in the violence-marred local polls in the state held in May this year. It was alleged that around 34% seats were uncontested.

The Trinamool won 16,814 of the 48,650 gram panchayat seats and 3,059 of 9,217 panchayat samiti seats uncontested. And of the 825 zilla parishad seats, the Mamata Banerjee-led party was declared the winner in 203 seats. Most of the seats where Trinamool won unchallenged were Birbhum, Bankura, Murshidabad and South 24 Parganas districts.

The top court had earlier refused to stay the poll process observing that there were a plethora of judgments which have held that once the poll process has begun, it cannot be interfered into by any court.

(with PTI inputs)

First Published: Aug 24, 2018 10:56 IST