West Bengal Panchayat polls: Supreme Court refuses to halt deployment of central forces; says elections not license for violence

The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to interfere with an order of the Calcutta High Court directing deployment of central forces for the upcoming panchayat polls in West Bengal [State of West Bengal and ors vs Suvendu Adhikari and ors]..A vacation bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Manoj Misra at the outset observed that the High Court's order was meant to ensure free and fair elections in the State. "Order of High Court does not call for any interference. We are not interfering with any direction of the High Court. Appeals stand dismissed," the Bench ordered. .During the hearing, the Court had also observed that holding elections cannot be a license for violence and the High Court had seen earlier instances of violence. "Holding elections cannot be a license for violence and HC has seen earlier instances of violence, Elections cannot be accompanied by violence. If persons are not able to file their nominations and if they are finished off while they are going to file it then where is the free and fair election," the Court demanded..The top court was hearing appeals filed by the West Bengal government and the State Election Commission (SEC) against two orders of the Calcutta High Court.The main grievance was against the direction calling for immediate requisition and deployment of central forces in 'sensitive' seats for the upcoming panchayat polls.The High Court had on June 15 pulled up the West Bengal State Election Commission (SEC) for dragging its feet in this regard.The orders under challenge were passed by the High Court while hearing public interest litigation (PIL) petitions filed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader, Suvendu Adhikari, and Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.Both the politicians had approached the High Court challenging the SEC's move of notifying the schedule of the three-tier (Gram Panchayat, Panchayat Samiti and Zilla Parishad) Panchayat elections.They had sought deployment of central forces and also sough extension of deadline for filing nominations.The High Court had turned down the later prayer while allowing the former. .The State government today informed the Court that as on date, there were no demarcations made of sensitive areas and deployment ordered by the High Court was for every district, whether sensitive or not. .Senior Advocate Meenakshi Arora, appearing for the State Election Commission (SEC), added that the election commission has been working on identifying sensitive poll booths and the observations that SEC was not doing anything, were incorrect."189 poll booths have been recognised as sensitive... I am aggrieved by 2 directions of the High Court ... it says Election Commission should decide on requisition of forces and deployment has to be in sync with sensitive and non sensitive ones."She also stated that the High Court had directed the SEC to requisition central forces from the State government. However, this could not be done since it is the task of the State and not the SEC."We can only ask for the force and from where they get it is not something we look at," the Senior Counsel explained. .On the other hand, appearing for the respondents, Senior Advocate Harish Salve said that the mindset that central forces are an invading army was incorrect. "It is only the source of getting the forces and it is nothing on deployment.. no High Court will ever direct that head of the force will decide on deployment... there is a problem in this state and problem has manifested several times...".He further stated that on June 14, the State government had said that they did not have any any assessment plan and this process should have started much earlier. "State is just embarrassed to say that we do not have forces but we do not want central forces..".West Bengal panchayat polls: Calcutta High Court pulls up EC; State says political parties should not chant religious slogans in secular country.Follow our detailed coverage of the case here..[Read live-coverage of the hearing below]