[ad_1]
Kolkata, March 28 (). A division bench of the Calcutta High Court on Tuesday declined to interfere with the process initiated by the West Bengal State Election Commission (WBSEC) to conduct elections to the three-tier panchayat system.
A division bench of Calcutta High Court Chief Justice Prakash Srivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bhardwaj dismissed a PIL filed by Leader of Opposition in West Bengal Shubhendu Adhikari. The bench also said that WBSEC will take all decisions related to polling and the court will not interfere in the matter.
The Leader of the Opposition filed a PIL on two grounds. The first premise was that the current population of Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) in the state should be worked out on the basis of household surveys, as was done in the case of Other Backward Classes (OBCs). In the PIL, he argued that there cannot be two different criteria, one in the case of SC/ST and the other in the case of OBC.
The second ground highlighted by the Leader of Opposition in the PIL was related to the deployment of central armed forces to the rural civic body.
A division bench of Justice Srivastava and Justice Bhardwaj, however, dismissed the PIL on Tuesday, but allowed the Leader of the Opposition to file a separate petition on the issue of deployment of the Central Armed Forces.
Political observers feel hurdles have been cleared for the WBSEC to announce the dates for the rural body polls following Tuesday’s decision by a division bench of the Calcutta High Court.
Welcoming the decision, Trinamool Congress state vice-president Jayaprakash Majumdar said the BJP’s efforts to create hurdles in the panchayat polls have finally been nullified. The court has finally upheld the rights of the WBSEC to take decisions regarding the panchayat elections, he said.
cbt
Follow Niharika Times for all the big news from India and abroad. Like us on Facebook and Twitter . Always visit Niharika Times for latest news.