BHOPAL: Coming down heavily on the Panna district collector Sanjay Mishra for declaring the loser candidate as winner in last month’s Janpad Panchayat vice-chairman elections, the Madhya Pradesh High Court passed strictures against the collector, observing, “He’s acting as a political agent, he’s not fit to be a collector.”
“He (Panna district collector) conducted himself as a political agent, he has no regards for principles of natural justice, this man should be removed from the post of district collector,” Justice Vivek Agarwal who headed the single judge bench of MP High Court observed while hearing the petition pertaining to declaring of loser candidate as winner in last month’s Gunnor Janpad Panchayat vice-chairperson polls.
The Gunnor Janpad Panchayat (which is part of the Panna district) was among the 312 Janpad Panchayats in MP, where newly elected Janpad Panchayat members had voted to elect chairperson and vice-chairperson on July 27 and 28.
The 25-members strong Gunnor Janpad Panchayat voted to elect chairperson and vice-chairperson on July 27. In the vice-chairperson poll, the Congress backed candidate Parmanand Sharma defeated the nearest rival Ramshiromani Mishra (backed by ruling BJP) by securing 13 out of the 25 votes.
The presiding officer of the election Ram Niwas Choudhary, subsequently issued the election certificate to the winning candidate Parmanand Sharma the same day. But the same day, an election petition was filed by the losing candidate Ramshiromani Mishra before the Panna district collector (district election officer) challenging the poll outcome.
According to the actual winner candidate’s counsel Quazi Fakhruddin, “without following the rules pertaining to admission and hearing of election petition (which is heard akin to a civil suit trial), the district collector Sanjay Mishra, without giving an opportunity of hearing to the respondent (winning candidate) passed an ex parte order, annulling the poll result. He then called for a fresh election the next day through the lottery system, without notifying it and informing my client about it and later declared the actual loser candidate Ramshiromani Mishra (the ruling BJP backed candidate) as the winner.”
Aggrieved by the one-sided order, which violated the principles of natural justice also, the actual Gunnor Janpad Panchayat vice chairperson poll winner Parmanand Sharma challenged before the High Court the annulling of his election and the declaration of the declared loser candidate as winner.
On Wednesday, while passing strictures against the Panna district collector Sanjay Mishra, the single judge High Court bench stayed both the orders of the collector dated July 27 and July 28. With this actual election of Congress backed candidate Parmanand Sharma becomes effective again, the petitioner’s counsel told The New Indian Express.