West Bengal Panchayat polls: Supreme Court rejects pleas challenging deployment of central forces

The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed pleas challenging a Calcutta High Court order directing the State Election Commission (SEC) to requisition and deploy central forces across West Bengal for the upcoming panchayat elections.

A vacation bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Manoj Misra said the fact remains that the tenor of the high court order is ultimately to ensure free and fair elections in the state since it is conducting local body polls on a single day.

The petitions were filed by the West Bengal government and the State Election Commission.

‘Polls cannot be followed by violence’

The top court also pulled up the TMC-led state government amid violence ahead of the local body polls.

“We appreciate that you have a democratic setup for elections from top to bottom, but the elections cannot be followed by violence,” the SC said.

The high court had on 15 June directed the SEC to requisition and deploy central forces across West Bengal for the panchayat elections within 48 hours.

The court had noted that no appreciable steps had been taken ever since it passed an order on June 13 to deploy central forces in sensitive areas for the poll process.

The high court had directed the SEC to requisition central forces for deployment in all the districts of the state that were rocked by violence during filing of nominations for the July 8 panchayat elections.

With inputs from agencies

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