Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: Trinamool Congress on Friday moved Supreme Court, challenging the additional chief electoral officer’s decision mandating “at least one among the counting supervisor and counting assistant at each counting table shall be a central govt/central PSU employee” for counting of votes for the recently concluded assembly elections.The party sought an urgent hearing, as the counting is scheduled for Monday (May 4), and SC decided to list the case on Saturday. A special bench of Justices P S Narasimha and Joymalya Bagchi has been constituted to hear the case. The party moved SC after its plea was rejected by Calcutta HC.In an appeal filed through advocate Sanchit Garga, Trinamool alleged that the decision was “arbitrary, without jurisdiction, discriminatory, and creating a reasonable apprehension of bias, given that its principal political opponent, the BJP, is the governing party at the Centre and thus exercises administrative control over central govt/PSU employees”.It said this “sudden and selective change” in procedure, applicable only to Bengal and not to other states where elections were held simultaneously, “vitiates the principles of a free and fair election”.The petitioner said that EC has already laid down a comprehensive and exhaustive framework governing such a process under the Handbook for Counting Agents, 2023, which provides for the presence of micro-observers, who are invariably central govt/central PSU employees, at each counting table to ensure transparency and integrity of the process.“Despite the existence of such safeguards, the communication introduces an additional and disproportionate requirement mandating the presence of central govt/central PSU employees as counting supervisors or counting assistants over and above the micro-observers already present from the central govt/central PSU employees. The said requirement has been imposed without disclosing any objective criteria, material basis, or transparent reasoning and is purportedly founded on vague and unsubstantiated apprehensions regarding irregularities in the counting process,” the petition said.The effect of such a directive is “to significantly alter the composition of personnel at the counting tables by disproportionately increasing the presence of individuals under the control of the central govt without any corresponding representation or balancing mechanism. This creates a reasonable apprehension of bias, undermines the neutrality of the counting process, and disturbs the level playing field” between contesting political parties.“Moreover, the timing of the said communication, having been clandestinely issued to all the district electoral officers, a month after the announcement of the date of elections and immediately before the commencement of the first phase of elections in Bengal gives rise to a serious apprehension of mala fides and indicates an attempt to interfere with the conduct of free and fair elections at a crucial stage of the electoral process,” it said.
