KOLKATA: The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday dismissed an appeal filed by the ruling Trinamool Congress challenging the transfer of IAS, IPS and police officers, along with other state government administrative personnel, in poll-bound West Bengal.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Sujoy Paul and Justice Partha Pratim Sen, while dismissing the plea, observed, “ … we are constrained to hold that the writ petitioner could not establish that because of transfers of officers, any public injury is caused.”
The bench termed the plea “sans substance”.
The state government had supported the petition filed by the ruling party on Monday. “…merely because the state is supporting the petitioner, the petitioner cannot be permitted to travel beyond the scope of the pleadings.
Thus, the supporting stand of state government will not improve the case of the petitioner. Similarly, state as a respondent cannot enter into the shoes of a petitioner,” the bench stated in its order.
Trinamool Congress MP and lawyer Kalyan Banerjee had on Monday alleged that the transfer of IAS, IPS and police officers, along with other state government administrative personnel such as officers-in-charge (OCs) of police stations and block development officers (BDOs), by the Election Commission of India ahead of the upcoming polls in the state was politically motivated.
An advocate, Arka Kumar Nag, had approached the High Court on the same issue on Monday. The first petition filed by Nag challenged the transfer of 46 IAS and IPS officers, followed by a second petition against the transfer of 267 officers-in-charge and inspectors-in-charge of police stations and block development officers.
On the night of March 16, hours after the poll dates were announced, then Chief Secretary Nandini Chakravorty and Home Secretary Jagadish Prasad Meena were transferred.
This was the first time that a Chief Secretary had been moved out of office in the run-up to Assembly elections.
On March 18, the ECI transferred 10 IPS officers at the rank of deputy inspector general (DIG) and inspector general (IG) of police, including the Commissioners of Police of Bidhannagar and Siliguri.
With this, the total number of police officers transferred since March 16 stands at 33.
On March 25, the Commission transferred East Midnapore District Magistrate and District Election Officer Unice Rishin Ismail and posted Niranjan Kumar, a 2007-batch IAS officer, in his place.
The decision came after the Commission found that some contractual employees’ names had been included in the database prepared for deployment on poll duties, allegedly violating election guidelines.
In Malda district, the central poll panel replaced the police observer assigned to four Assembly constituencies after the Trinamool alleged that his wife had links with BJP leaders in Bihar.
Jayant Kant, an IPS officer from Uttar Pradesh, was removed from the role of police observer for Manikchak, Mothabari, Sujapur and Baishnabnagar. Hriday Kant, an IPS officer from the Bihar cadre, was appointed in his place on March 28.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had raised the issue of transfers during her poll campaign, accusing the BJP and the Commission of imposing an “Emergency” in the state and paralysing her government.
“Merely because the EC has transferred a sizeable number of officers, it cannot be said that action is arbitrary, capricious or mala fide,” the High Court order stated.
Counsel for the ECI, Dama Sheshadri Naidu, submitted before the bench that the Chief Secretary was replaced by an officer a year senior to her and that the Home Secretary has seven years more experience than the previous incumbent.
Naidu also submitted a press clipping from March 17 stating that 23 All India Service officers were deployed in Bengal. In two other poll-bound states, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, the number of such deployments was 25 and 16, respectively, he told the court.