Suman Majumdar And ORS v. The Secretary Of West Bengal Election Commission And ORS

26.07.2023 sb. Ct.24 In The High Court At Calcutta Constitutional Writ Jurisdiction Appellate Side W.P.A 17146 of 2023 Suman Majumdar & Ors.

versus The Secretary of West Bengal State Election Commission & Ors.

Mr. Kiron Sk.

...For the Petitioners.

Ms. Sonal Sinha, Mr. Tarun Chatterjee, Mr. Sujit Gupta, Mr. Sayan Datta, Mr. Soumen Chatterjee ...For the State Election Commission.

Mr. Santanu Kumar Mitra Mrs. Roma Halder ...For the State.

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

The petitioners contested the Panchayat General Elections, 2023.

They allege malpractice on the day of counting. Objection was filed before the Returning Officer on 11th July, 2023, but the same is yet to be disposed of. Without going into the merits of the allegation made in the complaint dated 11th July, 2023, filed by the petitioners, the instant writ petition is disposed of by directing the State Election Commission to look into the

complaint filed by the petitioners at the earliest, but positively within a period of ten days from the date of communication of a copy of this order.

A reasoned order shall be passed and communicated to the petitioners immediately thereafter.

The learned advocate for the petitioners is directed to forward a copy of the complaint dated 11th July, 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 certified photocopy of this order, if applied for, be supplied to the parties expeditiously on compliance of usual legal formalities.

(Amrita Sinha, J.)