SC stays order of Calcutta High Court on West Bengal Panchayat Polls

Kolkata, May 11: After the much talked and chaos over the West Bengal Panchay Polls doing the round, the Supreme Court has intervened lately. The Supreme Court 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 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”. 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.

SC further stayed an order of the Calcutta High Court asking the SEC to accept nomination papers for the panchayat polls filed by the contesting candidates through e-mail.

The filing of nomination process for the panchayat polls was marred by violence incidents with opposition parties alleging that the Trinamool workers did not allow other party candidates to file their papers.

On May 8, the high court had directed the SEC to accept the nominations of those candidates named by the CPI (M) who had filed their papers electronically within the stipulated time before 3pm on April 23.