Won't cancel polls to over 20,000 uncontested local body seats in West Bengal: SC

Court was hearing pleas from 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.

A view of the Supreme Court of India.

In a relief to Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the Supreme Court on Friday turned down the pleas of CPI(M) and the BJP seeking the cancellation of elections to over 20,000 uncontested local body seats in the State.

All these seats were won unopposed by Trinamool candidates, and the Opposition parties had alleged that their candidates were obstructed from filing nomination papers.

The apex court, 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 A.M. Khanwilkar and D.Y. 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.

Situation ‘grim and grave’

The court had 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.

The court, meanwhile, 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.

“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 the Peoples Act”.

Out of a total 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.

Earlier, the State 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 apex court earlier stayed the High Court order asking the State election body to accept the nomination papers filed through e-mail for the panchayat elections and directed the poll panel not to declare in the gazette the names of those candidates who had won unopposed.

The top court, on August 13, asked the election panel as to whether it conducted any probe into the fact that a large number of seats in the local body elections went uncontested

The apex court had said that the issue of huge number of uncontested seats had been bothering it.

Not an alarming situation, says State poll panel

The poll panel, however, argued that 33 per cent of nearly 50,000 panchayat seats going uncontested was not “an alarming situation“.

Elections were held in phases for 48,650 posts in gram panchayats, 825 posts in zilla parishads and 9,217 posts in panchayat samitis and it has been alleged that around 34 per cent seats were uncontested.

The apex court had refused to stay the poll process, observing that there were a plethora of judgments that had held that once the poll process had begun, it could not be interfered into by any court.