The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has filed a public interest litigation petition in the Madras High Court seeking a direction to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to shift out V. Candavelou from the post of Chief Electoral Officer of Puducherry and appoint some other officer to ensure conduct of free and fair elections to the Lok Sabha.
The First Division Bench of Chief Justice Vijaya Kamlesh Tahilramani and Justice M. Duraiswamy would be hearing the case on Monday. The party insisted on his transfer on multiple grounds. It claimed that he was a native of Mudaliarpet in Puducherry. He had been holding the post of the CEO for more than four years and there were several allegations against him.
Filing an affidavit in support of the petition, CPI(M) Puducherry committee secretary R. Rajangam said it had been the consistent policy of the ECI to shift government officers from home districts and from places where they had served for long before the conduct of elections and the latest instructions on the issue were issued on January 16.
On home ground
The party contended that such instructions should apply equally to CEOs. It said that Mr. Candavelou’s father was an employee of Anglo French Textiles in Puducherry and most of his relatives were residents of Puducherry. The petitioner accused him of facing charges of nepotism in appointments made at the election office.
He had held the post of Secretary to the Government before assuming charge as the CEO on March 3, 2015. “By working in the same station for past four years, he has developed animosity against a few and close relations with a few and it is impossible for him to act in a free, fair and unbiased manner in the matter of conducting elections,” the affidavit read.
It went on to allege that the officer faced allegations of “illegal and improper” acceptance of nomination papers of six candidates during the last Legislative Assembly elections in Puducherry and that several political parties, including some of the major ones, had voiced their concerns with regard to his “partial and biased” conduct.
EC’s plea
Further, stating to have reliably learnt that ECI itself had written to the Union Home Ministry as well as the Chief Secretary to Puducherry government, sometimes between November 2017 and June 2018, seeking recommendation of three names for appointment of a new CEO, the party said the process, for reasons best known to the commission, had still not been completed.
Although the petitioner party had made a representation to the ECI on February 23 to shift the officer at the earliest, in view of the impending notification of Parliamentary elections any time now, the ECI did not take any step to address its grievance, as well as that of other parties in the union territory, and had been maintaining stoic silence, the CPI(M) alleged.