NEW DELHI: In a relief to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress, the Supreme Court turned down pleas of CPI(M) and the BJP seeking the cancellation of elections to over 20,000 uncontested local body seats in the State. All the seats were won unopposed by Trinamool candidates, and the Opposition parties had alleged that their candidates were obstructed from filing nomination papers.
The SC, however, took note of the allegations and said the aggrieved candidate may file election petitions to challenge panchayat polls in courts concerned. A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and 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 would now commence from the date of notification of panchayat poll results.
The court termed the situation “grim and grave” and directed the West Bengal State Election Commission not to declare and notify the results of the panchayat elections in the wake of allegations of large scale violence and alleged obstruction of filing of nomination papers. Meanwhile, the court set aside the Calcutta High Court decision directing the State poll panel to allow the filing of nomination papers in the panchayat elections through electronic forms such as e-mails and WhatsApp.
It said, “The High Court was in error while allowing the filing of nomination papers through electronic forms,” adding, “no such process is either mentioned nor allowed under the provisions of the Representation of the Peoples Act.” Out of a total of 58,692 posts for gram panchayat village, zilla parishad and panchayat samiti, 20,159 had remained uncontested in the violence-marred local polls held in May last. The court was hearing the pleas from the BJP and CPI(M) alleging that only the Trinamool candidates were allowed to file nomination papers, and as a result, they won without any contest.
The State had earlier told court that the row over the recently concluded panchayat polls had led to a
“constitutional crisis” since the tenure of several panchayats were over and new bodies not been made functional. The top court asked the election panel on August 13, whether it conducted any probe into the fact that a large number of seats in the local body elections went uncontested.
