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Synopsis

The Calcutta High court on Tuesday, while citing the situation as "extraordinary" directed the State Election Commission to deploy central forces at polling booths in the state during the panchayat elections going to be held on July 8.

According to a report in The Times of India, the Division Bench of Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmoy Bhattacharya directed the Inspector General of the Border Security Force (BSF), who had been appointed as the force coordinator, to ensure that Central forces cover all polling stations in the state with a 50:50 deployment of Centre forces and police personnel at each polling station.

The bench had issued the 50:50 deployment in response to a request from deputy solicitor general Billwadal Bhattacharya, who highlighted the division bench's previous order directing state and central forces to collaborate.

The problem arose when State Election Commission senior attorney Jishnu Saha brought the attention of the court to the deployment norm for central forces.

Saha stated that they had received the word that all 822 central forces companies will be arriving in the state before the election day. But there was one difficulty  which can be seen was that with the central forces sanctioned in accordance with the central norm, only 15,000 polling booths out of the total 61,000 odd booths can be deployed with central forces.

To clarify the difficulty, the counsel presented figures before the bench. He stated that 822 companies (considering 80 active personnel in one company) equate to approximately 65,000 central forces. The general rule is to deploy at least four central forces in 25% of all polling booths.

The State Election Commission had also submitted the report earlier which stated that the state has 70,000 state armed forces. 65,000 additional central forces will be deployed to the state. The two forces combined can be placed in all polling booths in a 50:50 ratio.

The court after considering the submissions said, “Central forces had to be requisitioned in an extraordinary situation for a specific purpose. The court also passed a  directive till the purpose is achieved.”

Accordingly, the bench ordered the IG (BSF) to offer suitable guidance. The bench further ordered that the central forces remain until the results were announced.