Along with rejecting TMC’s petition, the Supreme Court asked- Why can’t central employees be involved in counting of votes?

New Delhi, 2 May. Ahead of the counting of votes for the West Bengal Assembly elections, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her party Trinamool Congress (TMC) received a jolt from the Supreme Court when the top court on Saturday rejected the party’s plea challenging the Election Commission’s (EC) decision to appoint central government and public sector unit (PSU) employees as counting observers and assistants.

The apex court rejected the arguments of TMC lawyer Kapil Sibal

The Supreme Court, while rejecting all the arguments of advocate Kapil Sibal appearing on behalf of TMC, said that the argument of Trinamool Congress that the central government employee will inevitably go against them is baseless. The court said that this is a baseless assumption and instead Trinamool should ‘put some trust in government employees’.

It is noteworthy that TMC had earlier filed a petition in the Calcutta High Court against the decision of the Election Commission, from where it was disappointed. After that TMC filed a petition in the Supreme Court on Saturday.

Senior lawyer Kapil Sibal, representing TMC, cited a circular issued by the Election Commission and said, ‘It says that there are apprehensions about irregularities from various quarters. They want some other nominee of the central government. Is this not pointing fingers at the state government?

Justice P.S. A special bench of Justice Narasimha and Justice Joymalya Bagchi said that the EC can select the counting personnel and its April 13 circular cannot be said to be wrong. The Commission said that the circular clearly states that the central-state government employees will work jointly and the apprehension of any kind of irregularities by the Trinamool Congress is baseless. The Election Commission assured the court that the circular would be followed in letter and spirit.

Kapil Sibal had initially said that the circular was dated April 13, but he got information about it on April 29. During the hearing of the petition, the bench said that the Election Commission can select the counting personnel from only one group i.e. the Central Government. Therefore his circular cannot be called wrong.

Senior advocate DS Naidu, appearing for the Election Commission, said that the returning officer is an employee of the state government and has full authority to deploy personnel from any group of government employees. After this Sibal said that he wants the circular to be implemented as is.

Justice Bagchi asked if they wanted compliance with the circular, then why was Trinamool in the court? After this, the bench rejected the petition and said that no further order is required. Voting for 294 seats of the West Bengal Assembly was held in two phases on April 23 and April 29. Counting of votes will take place on May 4.