The Election Commission (EC) on Saturday assured the Supreme Court that representatives of the state government will be part of the vote counting process in West Bengal, prompting the apex court to reject a plea by the Trinamool Congress (TMC) on counting of people.
A special bench of Justices B S Narasimha and Joymalia Bagchi said that the circular issued by the poll panel on April 13, which stipulates a mix of central and state government employees in the counting exercise on May 4, is not inconsistent with the law. She added that the EC has the discretion to appoint counting staff from either group, dismissing the TMC’s concerns of bias.
“At least one of the counting supervisor and counting assistant at each counting table shall be an employee of the Central Government/Central Account Support Unit,” the circular states. Senior advocates of the TMC, Kapil Sibal and Meenakshi Arora, said the same also requires one official to be at the counting table from the state government, which they said the commission is not following.
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The Poll Committee denied the accusation, describing it as “completely misplaced,” and said that it already ensures the presence of a state representative during the counting process. “This is the rule we followed even before them [TMC] Each candidate will also have their own screening agent, EC lawyer Dhamma Sisadari Naidu said.
Naidu also said that as part of the randomization process, the counting supervisor and counting assistant are selected in a way that ensures whether one is from the central government and the other is from the state government.
The counting supervisor supervises the counting process at a designated table and certifies the count before sending it to the returning employee. The counting assistant separates valid and rejected votes and maintains the count.
The returning officer, who has overall authority over the entire counting process, is mandatorily an official from the state government department, Naidu added.
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Sibal then argued that the poll panel should be directed to follow the entire circular and ensure that there is a representative of the state government at the counting table. “This circular stipulates that at least one of the counting supervisors must be from the central government or PSU. All we want is for there to be a nominee from the state government. Our instructions are that this should not be done,” he said.
The EC assured the court that the circular would be implemented as stipulated, with Naidu saying that “state government employees will be present during the counting of votes.”
“There is no need for further orders in this case except recording the statement of Mr. DS Naidu appearing before the poll panel that the Election Commission will implement the circular dated April 13 in its true letter and spirit. With these clarifications, the special leave petition is dismissed,” the bench said in its order.
Both the TMC and the BJP praised the court order.
The TMC said the SC’s directions vindicate its position, noting that it had raised concerns over the implementation of the April 13 order in a manner that only allows central government or PSU employees to be appointed as supervisors and assistant counts. The court directed that the order “should be read along with the salient feature…that provides for random selection of state and central government employees,” the ruling party in West Bengal said in a statement.
BJP condemns TMC’s ‘baseless allegations’
However, BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi hit back at the TMC and said, “The Supreme Court’s decision is constitutionally appropriate. But the TMC’s move to approach the Supreme Court with baseless allegations as a basis for its plea raises serious questions about the party’s intentions.”
The TMC had approached the Supreme Court after the Calcutta High Court dismissed his petition on April 30, dismissing the party’s concerns of bias and calling it “impossible to believe”.
The Supreme Court had held that the EC has the power to appoint counting officers from either the central or state government and said that the issue can be raised only through an election petition after the results are announced.
In making an urgent appeal on Friday, the TMC questioned the timing of the Election Commission’s April 13 circular, saying it was not disclosed to the party until April 29.
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“We were not informed about this in advance. According to their circular, they assume that there will be some irregularities at every stall,” Sibal told the court.
The Council rejected this argument, saying: “As far as you are concerned, there is no room for consultation with political parties… We fall into the fallacy of assuming that central government employees will belong to a category.”
The court said during the hearing that the committee has the authority to select polling officials from among a group of central and state officials. “All officers discharging their duties are subject to the control of the IEC… It is open for them to choose from among the pool of central or state officials. When such a choice is open, we cannot hold that the commission is acting in contravention of the regulations,” the court said.
Addressing a press conference after the order, Sibal said: “We argued that you are posting an employee in the central government and posting an employee in the state government as well. We did not challenge the circular.” He said the Supreme Court had clearly said that there should be a central government employee and a state government employee at the counting table and that should be followed.
“We now expect that through the randomization process, a state government employee will be appointed at each of the counting stations and tables. To ensure a level playing field, there should be a state government employee at each counting table,” Sibal said.
As an added bonus, police monitors were deployed
Separately, the EC on Saturday deployed 165 additional census observers and 77 police observers in West Bengal.
While the additional counting observers will assist the 294 observers already deployed in each constituency, the additional police observers will enhance security and oversee law and order arrangements outside the counting centres, the poll body said.
“Additional counting observers and police observers have been deployed to ensure that the counting process is conducted in a safe, peaceful, intimidation-free and transparent environment,” the poll committee said.
(with PTI inputs)
