WB Panchayat polls: Calcutta High Court slams State EC, issues contempt notice for dragging feet in seeking central forces

In a setback to the West Bengal State Election Commission, the Calcutta High Court on Friday (October 13) issued 'rule nisi' against the West Bengal State Election Commission (SEC) on a batch of petitions accusing it of contempt of court over its conduct during the recently concluded West Bengal panchayat polls.[Suvendu Adhikari vs Rajiv Sinha]..Effectively, the Court has asked the SEC to explain why contempt proceedings should not be carried forward against it for 'dragging its feet' in complying with court orders to deploy paramilitary forces during the panchayat polls.."At every stage of the matter, the SEC had been dragging its feet without any precise and concrete steps being initiated. We are of the view that the SEC has sought of feigned compliance of the directions and to make believe as if the order has been complied with. This is in our view, would be a deliberate violation of the order or in other words their action to make the order passed in the writ petition unworkable," the bench observed..A division bench of Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam and Justice Uday Kumar noted the Court had sought to ensure free and fair elections in the State through a series of earlier orders. .The Court explained that its aim was to ensure that the SEC discharged its duties and responsibilities with the aid of the State machinery. However, the High Court opined that the SEC had acted to deliberately make such court orders unworkable. .The Court further noted that initially, the SEC requisitioned only 22 companies of central forces. This, the judges said, cannot be construed to be compliance with the court's order for deploying adequate central paramilitary forces to contain poll-related violence. The SEC was fully aware that the 22 companies of central forces will be grossly inadequate to take care of the panchayat elections in the entire State, the Court added. "This again is an act of contempt. This also brings to light that the SEC did not make a proper assessment or was it a deliberate attempt to make an under-assessment just to hoodwink the Court that order and direction has been complied with," the bench underscored..The bench added that the SEC failed to cooperate in identifying sensitive booths. As a result, there was no centralized deployment plan put in place and there was no centralised plan for logistical support to facilitate the quick deployment of central forces, the Court said. The judges pointed out that this was despite the Supreme Court dismissing the SEC's challenge to the High Court's directions to deploy central forces. .The bench also referred in detail to a report submitted by the Inspector General, Border Security Force (BSF), who was the Force Coordinator for deploying the Central forces in West Bengal. In the report filed on July 12, the Force Coordinator highlighted that despite several communications, the SEC did not discuss or hand out the list of 'sensitive booths.' Instead, the Coordinator was asked to work with the District Magistrates or the Commissioners of Police in 22 districts, the Court noted. Further, the SEC is only said to have indicated that there were 4,384 sensitive polling stations in these 22 districts without actually giving the location of these booths. ."There has been constant non-cooperation by the SEC in each and every stage for effective implementation of the orders passed by the court. Several companies of central forces were made to sit idle in the respective barracks till the late hours of July 7, 2023 and finally at 10.55 PM a letter was received from the SEC stating that the Commission has accorded its principal approval to the proposed deployment plan," the report highlighted..The Court went on to note that the SEC's response to this report was 'absolutely vague.' "Surprisingly, the SEC would state that the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Force Coordinator never asked for any deployment plan in advance. We fail to understand as to how the SEC could have taken such a stand," the Court added..The judges pointed out that drawing up a deployment plan was a pre-requisite in view of the Court's orders on the issue. The SEC should have done this in advance and shared it with the Central authorities, the Court observed. The Court concluded that the SEC had shirked from the responsibilities cast on it. "We find that the SEC was not pro-active to ensure the effective compliance of the order and direction issued by the Court. This again is a clear act of contempt," the bench opined, before proceeding to issue the rule nisi against the poll body. .Advocates Soumya Majumder, Srijib Chakraborty, Kabir Shankar Bose, Anish Kumar Mukherjee, Suryaneel Das, Amit Kumar Mishra and Chiranjit Pal appeared for Suvendu Adhikari (petitioner).Senior Advocates PS Raman, Kishore Datta, Jishnu Sinha along with Advocates Sonal Sinha, Avishek Prasad and Sayan Dutta represented the SEC.Additional Solicitor General Ashoke Kumar Chakrabarti along with Deputy Solicitor General Billwadal Bhattacharyya along with Advocates Ayanabha Raha and Tirtha Pati Acharya represented the Union government.Advocates Sirsanya Bandopadhyay, Piyush Agarwal, Arka Nag, Utsha Dasgupta, Shrivalli Kajaria and Riddhi Jain represented the State government..[Read Judgment]