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A Supreme Court bench of Justices Chandrachud and Surya Kant today dismissed the plea filed by a Bhartiya Janta Party leader  Pratap Banerjee challenging the Calcutta High Court order over deployment of Central Paramilitary Force for West Bengal local body elections.

When the matter was called for hearing, Senior Advocate Paramjit Patwalia, appearing for the petitioner submitted that “Our (BJP) candidates are not being permitted to file nominations. There have been certain incidents that have been perpetuated.”

Patwalia further submitted that when a BJP candidate raised a protest against the misbehaviour of a Trinamool candidate, he was threatened. He added that votes of dead people are being cast and that there have been many instances of false voting.

Patwalia argued that “The State says there are no incidence of violence. It was in this scenario that we approached the court. We asked the central forces as a supplement to the State forces. There were 5 instances to show State Election Commission is leaning towards the government.”

He further submitted that the State Election Commission relied on ‘Joy Bangla’, a Trinamool Congress mouthpiece to establish that there have been no incidence of violence.

Importantly, he stressed that the government is running welfare schemes despite the code of conduct being in place.

However, Court, on hearing the submissions of both parties, dismissed the plea. After the plea being dismissed, SG Tushar Mehta submitted that in a similar case filed by Trinamool Congress during the local body elections in Tripura, the court had asked him if the government could deploy more forces, he submitted that he had no objection to deploy central forces in West Bengal as well. The court however refused to interfere.

The Supreme Court yesterday agreed to the urgent listing of this plea challenging the Calcutta High Court order asking the Commissioner of State Election Commission to decide as to whether the deployment of Central Paramilitary Forces is necessary for upcoming Municipal Elections.

Background:

Elections are to be held in 108 municipalities on 27th February. In lieu of the same the petitioners, including Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had asked for high court's direction to deploy central forces along. The court had passed a similar order with regards to election held for 4 municipalities on 12th February 2022. However, the SEC had decided not to deploy forces in the same.

The petitioner had alleged irregularity in using paper seals on Electronic Voting Machines. The high court had ordered such seals to be used for EVMs. The petitioner had also asked for independent observers from the center to oversee the election. Agreeing with them on this demand, Court had ordered appointment of impartial officers of IAS cadre to oversee the election. 

Pratap Banerjee v. State of West Bengal & Ors.