Supreme Court rejects TMC's plea on state govt representative among counting officials after EC's assurances

E-PaperSubscribeSubscribeEnjoy unlimited accessSubscribe Now! Get features like The Election Commission (EC) on Saturday assured the Supreme Court that state government representatives would be part of the vote counting process in West Bengal, prompting the top court to dismiss a plea by the Trinamool Congress (TMC) on counting personnel. The TMC had approached the top court after the Calcutta High Court dismissed its plea on April 30, brushing aside the party’s apprehension of bias as “impossible to believe”. (PTI/Hindustan Times)A special bench of justices PS Narasimha and Joymalya Bagchi said the poll panel’s April 13 circular, which provides for a mix of central and state government employees in the counting process on May 4, was not contrary to law. It added that EC has the discretion to appoint counting personnel from either pool, dismissing the TMC’s apprehension of bias. The circular says that “at least one among the counting supervisor and counting assistant at each counting table shall be a Central Government/Central PSU employee”. Senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Meenakshi Arora, appearing for the TMC, argued that the same order also requires one official at the counting table to be from the state government, which they said was not being followed by the Commission. ALSO READ | TMC will win 200+ seats, exit polls propaganda to influence share market: Mamata confident of win in Bengal The poll panel denied the charge as “completely misplaced” and said that it already ensures the presence of a state representative during counting. “That is a norm we followed even before they [TMC] said it,” EC’s counsel, senior advocate Dama Sesadari Naidu, said. He added that each candidate will also have their own counting agent. Naidu further said that as part of the randomisation process, the counting supervisor and counting assistant are selected in a manner that ensures if one is from the central government, the other is from the state government. The counting supervisor oversees the counting process at an assigned table and certifies the tally count before it is forwarded to the returning officer. The counting assistant segregates valid and rejected votes and maintains the tally. Naidu added that the returning officer, who has overarching authority over the entire counting process, is mandatorily an official from the state government service. ALSO READ | Nearly 87% turnout in repolling, fresh voting ordered in Falta: Top updates in Bengal election ahead of result day Sibal then argued that the poll panel should be directed to follow the circular in its entirety and ensure the presence of a state government representative at the counting table. “This circular mandates at least one of the counting supervisors to be from the central government or PSU. All we want is that a state government nominee should be there. Our instruction is it is not being done,” he said. EC assured the court that the circular would be implemented as prescribed, with Naidu saying that “there will be state government employees during the counting of votes”. “No further orders are necessary in this case except to record the statement of Mr DS Naidu appearing for 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 stands dismissed,” the bench said in its order. Both the TMC and the BJP hailed the court order. The TMC said the SC’s directions vindicated its stand, stating that it had raised concerns over the April 13 order being implemented in a manner that allowed only central government or PSU employees to be appointed as counting supervisors and assistants. In a statement, West Bengal’s ruling party said that the court directed that the order “must be read along with the salient feature... which provides for random selection of both State Government and Central Government employees.” BJP national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi, however, countered the TMC and said, “The Supreme Court’s decision is constitutionally appropriate. But the TMC’s move to approach the top court with baseless allegations as grounds of its plea raises grave questions on the party’s intentions.” The TMC had approached the top court after the Calcutta High Court dismissed its plea on April 30, brushing aside the party’s apprehension of bias as “impossible to believe”. The high court had held that EC has the prerogative to appoint counting personnel from either the central or state government and said the issue could be raised only through an election petition after the declaration of results. Moving an urgent appeal on Friday, the TMC questioned the timing of the Election Commission’s April 13 circular and said it was not disclosed to the party until April 29. ALSO READ | Massive protests in Bengal's Falta as locals allege TMC ‘threats’, security up amid repolling in 15 booths | Video Sibal told the court, “We are given no advance notice about it. And going by their circular, they are assuming that at every booth there will be some irregularity.” The bench rejected the argument, observing, “So far as you are concerned, there is no question of conferring with political parties... We are falling into a fallacy to assume central government employees will belong to some category.” During the hearing, the court said the commission had the authority to pick poll officers from the pool of central and state officials. “All officers discharging their duty are under the control of ECI... It is open for them to select from the pool of central or state officers. When that option is open, we cannot hold that the ECI is acting contrary to regulations,” the court said. Addressing a press conference after the order, Sibal said, “We argued that you are deploying a central government employee, deploy a state government employee, too. We were not challenging the circular.” He said the Supreme Court has clearly said that there should be a Central government employee and a state government employee at the counting table, and this must be followed. “We now expect that through a randomisation process, a state government employee would be appointed in 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. Separately, EC on Saturday deployed an additional 165 counting observers and 77 police observers in West Bengal. While the additional counting observers will assist the 294 such observers already deployed per constituency, the additional police observers will strengthen security and oversee law and order arrangements outside the counting centres, the poll body said. “The additional counting observers and police observers have been deployed to ensure that the counting proceedings are conducted in a secure, peaceful, intimidation-free and transparent environment,” the poll panel said.