Portia Khanam v. The Secretary Of West Bengal Election Commission And Others

Item No.12 In The High Court At Calcutta Constitutional Writ Jurisdiction Appellate Side 21.07.2023 Ct-24 WPA 16897 of 2023 Portia Khanam v.

The Secretary of West Bengal Election Commission & Ors.

Mr. Subhrajit Saha ...For the petitioner.

Mr. Billwadal Bhattacharyya, ld. DSGI.

Mr. Arijit Majumder ... for the Union of India.

Mr. Anuran Samanta ... for the respondent no. 3.

The petitioner contested the Panchayat General Elections, 2023. Her allegation is that at the counting venue she was mercilessly beaten and thrown out. There has been serious manipulation of votes on the counting table.

A complaint was lodged before the Commission. The same is yet to be disposed of.

Without going into the merits of the allegation made in the complaint filed by the petitioner, the instant writ petition is disposed of by directing the State Election Commission to look into the complaint filed by the petitioner at the earliest, but positively within a period of ten days from the date of communication of a copy of this order.

reasoned order shall be passed and communicated to the petitioner immediately thereafter. The learned advocate for the petitioner is directed to forward a copy of the complaint dated July 11, 2023 to the State Election Commission at the time of communicating the order of the Court.

The Panchayat Returning Officer is directed to properly preserve the CCTV/Video footages and the ballot papers and to produce the same as and when called for.

The writ petition stands disposed of.

Urgent photostat certified copy of this order, if applied for, be given to the parties on usual undertaking. Sh. (Amrita Sinha, J.)