Calcutta High Court on Thursday reposed its “faith and trust” in the State Election Commission pointing out that it has no independent machinery to assess the adequacy of security arrangements for the rural polls, thereby paving the way for the election to be held on May 14 as announced by the SEC.
However, the Bench said if loss of life and property exceeds the one during the last panchayat polls in 2013, the State government will be liable to pay compensation.
The Court also specified that the officials of the State government who submitted such report ( on security arrangements) will pay compensation and the State Election Commissioner who approved such report with regard to adequacy of such security arrangement will be personally liable to compensate such loss.
The Division Bench, putting the responsibility of fixing dates of the polls to the SEC said that, “our hope and expectation that whenever the election will be held, steps will be taken so that election will be fair, peaceful and transparent in all respects…”.
An earlier order by Justice Subrata Talukdar has said that the date of panchayat elections on May 14 should be treated as “tentative”.
Meanwhile the SEC, issued another order during the day giving details for the counting process and clearly referring to “panchayat elections scheduled on 14 May, 2018”.
The development, was welcomed by the ruling Trinamool Congress with senior party leader Partha Chatterjee saying that people of the State are happy that they can exercise their franchise on May 14.
Mr Chatterjee said that the Trinamool Congress is fully prepared to participate in the rural polls on May 14 and there was a concerted attempt by the Opposition to thwart the process of rural polls in the State.
Communist Party of India ( Marxist) leader and advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya who has appeared for the party before a number of courts of Calcutta High Court in connection with litigation regarding the panchayat poll expressed his disapproval to the order.
“ I don’t know how effectively will police officers function if they have to pay compensation from their own salary. In my opinion fresh dates for the polls should have been announced and all political parties should have been taken in confidence,” Mr Bhattacharya said.
Elections to three-tier panchayat polls in 20 districts of West Bengal was scheduled in the first week of May in three phases, but later SEC issued another notification saying that the polls be held on a single date on May 14. Almost 34 % seats in the rural polls have been won by the ruling Trinamool Congress without any contest.
