KOLKATA: The protracted criminal fight that dogged the State Election Commission before the panchayat poll now threatens to haunt it once more after Monday’s body count.
The SEC and the state executive insisted on Monday that the poll violence-death determine this time was less than the toll of 25 during the five-phase 2013 panchayat vote, the emphasis at the “beneficial” 2013-2018 comparability owing to the final Calcutta High Court directive.
This order allowed the SEC to go ahead with the one-day poll however added that the state election commissioner and senior state officials (who gave main points of poll-day security to the court docket) would be held personally responsible and must pay compensation from their wage and retirement benefits for deaths and injury to belongings if the level of violence this time was more than 2013’s.
The order would be applicable, the HC had mentioned, if it was proved that the SEC and the state executive had misled the court docket with “an unfair and a biased” security assessment.
Advocate Supratik Roy moved the division bench of Chief Justice Jyotirmay Bhattacharya and Justice Arijit Banerjee round 12.30 p.m. on Monday — just as the body count started to go up — pleading that the bench summon the state election commissioner and the state home secretary and direct them to stop the bloodshed. Roy confirmed video photographs of the violence to the bench — an extraordinary building in court docket — however the bench directed him to document a correct application.
Outside the court docket, the SEC insisted there were only “six poll deaths”. “Six persons have been killed in poll-related violence. Every dying is unfortunate however panchayat polls in Bengal have a priority of being violent. More deaths were befell in every panchayat poll since 2003,” a senior SEC legit mentioned. He, on the other hand, refused to match Monday’s deaths to any single-day poll toll in Bengal (the 2013 toll of 25 was unfold over a five-phase poll).
State director-general of police Surajit Kar Purakayastha, too, mentioned there were six poll-related deaths and added that the remaining have been indirectly linked to polls however, nevertheless, have been being probed.
Senior lawyer and CPM leader Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, on the other hand, described the SEC’s focal point on numbers as “myopic” and mentioned he was analyzing his options of shifting the Supreme Court or the Calcutta HC. The May 10 order had various aspects, he reasoned. “A free and fair poll is of paramount importance. The SEC can't shirk its duty. The deaths on someday of polling turn out the inadequacy of the protection supplied. We will move court docket. The SEC is in command of those deaths,” he mentioned. State BJP president Dilip Ghosh and state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, too, indicated they have been analyzing criminal options.
The SEC, wary of the affect of important blood-spill, shot off a number of letters over the weekend to the state police directorate and district panchayat officials, emphasising the importance of free and fair polls.
But this, say criminal experts, is probably not enough cover for the SEC. The May 10 order emphasized that the court docket was reposing its “faith and accept as true with within the prime constitutional functionary” who had vowed for the adequacy of the protection arrangements made by means of the state executive. The HC mentioned it believed the verdict taken by means of the state and approved by means of the SEC was “free, fair and unbiased”.
The SEC and the state executive insisted on Monday that the poll violence-death determine this time was less than the toll of 25 during the five-phase 2013 panchayat vote, the emphasis at the “beneficial” 2013-2018 comparability owing to the final Calcutta High Court directive.
This order allowed the SEC to go ahead with the one-day poll however added that the state election commissioner and senior state officials (who gave main points of poll-day security to the court docket) would be held personally responsible and must pay compensation from their wage and retirement benefits for deaths and injury to belongings if the level of violence this time was more than 2013’s.
The order would be applicable, the HC had mentioned, if it was proved that the SEC and the state executive had misled the court docket with “an unfair and a biased” security assessment.
Advocate Supratik Roy moved the division bench of Chief Justice Jyotirmay Bhattacharya and Justice Arijit Banerjee round 12.30 p.m. on Monday — just as the body count started to go up — pleading that the bench summon the state election commissioner and the state home secretary and direct them to stop the bloodshed. Roy confirmed video photographs of the violence to the bench — an extraordinary building in court docket — however the bench directed him to document a correct application.
Outside the court docket, the SEC insisted there were only “six poll deaths”. “Six persons have been killed in poll-related violence. Every dying is unfortunate however panchayat polls in Bengal have a priority of being violent. More deaths were befell in every panchayat poll since 2003,” a senior SEC legit mentioned. He, on the other hand, refused to match Monday’s deaths to any single-day poll toll in Bengal (the 2013 toll of 25 was unfold over a five-phase poll).
State director-general of police Surajit Kar Purakayastha, too, mentioned there were six poll-related deaths and added that the remaining have been indirectly linked to polls however, nevertheless, have been being probed.
Senior lawyer and CPM leader Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, on the other hand, described the SEC’s focal point on numbers as “myopic” and mentioned he was analyzing his options of shifting the Supreme Court or the Calcutta HC. The May 10 order had various aspects, he reasoned. “A free and fair poll is of paramount importance. The SEC can't shirk its duty. The deaths on someday of polling turn out the inadequacy of the protection supplied. We will move court docket. The SEC is in command of those deaths,” he mentioned. State BJP president Dilip Ghosh and state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, too, indicated they have been analyzing criminal options.
The SEC, wary of the affect of important blood-spill, shot off a number of letters over the weekend to the state police directorate and district panchayat officials, emphasising the importance of free and fair polls.
But this, say criminal experts, is probably not enough cover for the SEC. The May 10 order emphasized that the court docket was reposing its “faith and accept as true with within the prime constitutional functionary” who had vowed for the adequacy of the protection arrangements made by means of the state executive. The HC mentioned it believed the verdict taken by means of the state and approved by means of the SEC was “free, fair and unbiased”.
Body count keeps govt wary of HC security rider
![Body count keeps govt wary of HC security rider]()
Reviewed by Kailash
on
May 16, 2018
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