NEW DELHI: The Trinamool Congress on Friday approached the Supreme Court seeking permission to include West Bengal government employees as counting supervisors for the Assembly election results, a day after the Calcutta High Court dismissed its plea against the Election Commission’s directive.
A special bench of Justices PS Narasimha and J Bagchi has been constituted to hear the matter on May 2 following the urgency cited by the party.
The Election Commission has directed that each counting table must have at least one supervisor from the Central government or a Public Sector Undertaking for the counting scheduled on May 4. The TMC challenged a clause in a communication dated April 30.
Senior advocate and TMC MP Kalyan Banerjee argued before the High Court that the directive lacked legal basis. “The additional chief electoral officer of West Bengal had issued the impugned communication without any jurisdiction,” Banerjee told the court.
Defending the decision, senior advocate Jishnu Chowdhury, appearing for the EC, said the directive was aimed at ensuring neutrality and had been implemented in other states, including Kerala. “The petitioner has not disclosed any document or produced any evidence to establish that if Central Government/Central PSU employees are appointed as counting supervisors/counting assistants, the petitioner will be prejudiced in any way,” he submitted.
In its ruling, Justice Krishna Rao held that the appointment of counting personnel falls within the EC’s authority and found no illegality in the directive.