Kolkata: Dashing all hopes of the Trinamul Congress and the West Bengal state election commission, the division bench of the Calcutta high court on Monday refused to entertain their pleas challenging the single bench’s interim stay order on the panchayat elections last week, and sent them back to the single bench for hearing.
The order has come as a major setback to the ruling party and also the state poll panel. Refusing to interfere in “intra-court matter”, the division bench of justice Bishwanath Samaddar and justice Arindam Mukhopadhyay also directed the single bench of justice Subrata Talukdar to fast-track the hearing in the case.
It also suggested that the hearings can be done daily if needed. The division bench’s ruling came within few hours of the extension of the interim stay by Justice Talukdar on the rural poll process by another day till Tuesday as the division bench was then hearing the pleas by the Trinamul and the WBSEC against the interim stay order.
In his previous order on April 12, justice Talukdar had ordered the stay on the poll process till Monday.
During the hearing the division bench asked Trinamul MP Kalyan Banerjee, who appeared for the ruling party, why he filed the plea without waiting for the outcome of the case pending at the single bench.
Mr Banerjee reasoned that the single bench could not stay the poll process once the polls were declared. The bench also wanted to know from the WBSEC whether he agreed with the Trinamul’s demands. The state poll panel, however, argued it agreed with some of the ruling party’s demands in the plea.
The division bench then asked WBSEC secretary Nilanjan Shandilya’s depth of knowledge about the West Bengal Panchayat Act. Mr Shandilya, however, replied his knowledge was not sound. Observing that the state poll panel secretary should have better knowledge about the law the bench sought to know from the WBSEC and the state government when the five-year term would end in the panchayats.
The state poll panel and the state government stated that the term would end in August this year.
Hearing all sides, the bench gave its order at 4.30 pm. Emphatic over the ruling BJP lawyer Pratap Banerjee said, “The division bench held that only the single bench would hear the matter. The matter will come up for hearing at 2 pm on Tuesday.”
He added, “We welcome the order. This victory is not for the BJP but also for the people who love democracy. Today’s ruling is the verdict of the democracy of the state. The opposition parties’ candidates faced attacks on their way to file their nominations. We now hope that those who could not file their nominations would be able to do so.”
CPI(M) lawyer Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya said, “In view of the Supreme Court’s order on April 11 the division bench ruled that the matter has to be heard before the single bench first. If the Trinamool is dissatisfied over the single bench’s order, then they may make next move.”
The Trinamul MP said, “The court said it would not interfere in the single bench’s order. We will however argue before the single bench on Tuesday whether the writ petition will be maintaible or not.” He added that the party would not challenge the division bench’s order further.
