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The Supreme Court today agreed to the urgent listing of a plea filed by Bhartiya Janta Party leader Pratap Banerjee 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.

The matter was mentioned before a bench comprising the Chief Justice of India NV Ramana, Justice AS Bopanna, and Justice Hima Kohli stating that the elections are scheduled to be conducted on February 27, 2022, and the High Court has left it open for the Election Commission to decide over the deployment of Central Paramilitary Forces during the municipal elections.

The plea filed through Advocate Aditya Sharma has alleged that the High Court did not appreciate that immediate deployment of the central paramilitary forces is necessary for the conduct of free and fair elections to the municipalities in the State of West Bengal.

It states that the Candidates contesting election belonging to BJP in various municipalities were prevented by the goons of the ruling dispensation from filing the nomination papers.

In this regard, it further states that the West Bengal State Election Commission and the State Police have failed to fulfill their constitutional obligations by not acting in an independent, impartial and objective manner in making decisions regarding the need and deployment of such forces for the conduct of elections.

Whereas, it alleges that the West Bengal State Police, responsible for the maintenance of law and order in the State, is acting on the dictates of the ruling party and has deliberately refrained from taking steps to prevent and curb the incidents of violence taking place during the conduct of elections to the municipalities in the State of West Bengal.

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.

Earlier, on Monday the division bench of Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj had heard elaborate arguments presented by Sr. Adv. Paramjit Patwalia on behalf of BJP alleging that large scale violence took place in the last phase of election and that the SEC did not measure the ground situation and decided not to deploy only on assurance of State.

"One of the major players (BJP) is feeling uncomfortable in the election. We are coming to court over and over again. Nowhere else we are bothering the courts like this," Patwalia said. 

The petitioner had also alleged irregularity in using paper seals on Electronic Voting Machines. The Court ordered such seals to be used for EVMs. 

The petitioner had also asked for independent observers from the center to oversee the election. The Court ordered appointment of impartial officers of IAS cadre to oversee the election. 

Patwalia had referred to certain schemes of the State Government namely, Duare Sarkar, Paraye Smadhan and Lakshmi'r Bhandar and stated that such scheme started after the declaration of election which is breach of the Model Code of Conduct. He further referred to a government scheme that allows distribution of title deeds of plots of lands to refugees of East Pakistan, who had been occupying such plots. Adv. Jayanta Mitra, SEC and AG S.N. Mukherjee had submitted that the schemes started before the announcement of election, they were only restarted after announcement. 

Pratap Banerjee v. State of West Bengal & Ors.