SC rejects Trinamool claim of bias by Central govt. staff
The Supreme Court on Saturday called it a “fallacy” nursed by the Trinamool Congress that West Bengal Government services’ employees owe allegiance to it and Central employees were loyal to or controlled by the party ruling the Centre.They are employees of the government and are part of the Election Commission in the exercise of their electoral duties during the poll time, it said.
The oral observations were made while disposing of a petition filed by the Trinamool, which alleged that the EC was deliberately skewing the playing field in favour of the rival Bharatiya Janata Party by appointing more Central officers, disregarding State employees, at counting centres across West Bengal.
Questions party
Justice P.S. Narasimha, heading a Special Bench, questioned the Trinamool’s perceived need to have a “proportionate representation” of officers drawn from both Centre and State services at counting centres on May 4. “This is yet another fallacy, that is those belonging to State government services have a different allegiance… These are but employees of the government. Give them some credit,” Justice Narasimha said.
Justice Joymalya Bagchi, the associate judge on the Division Bench, said that once these officers were deployed for poll duties, they belonged to the EC. “All these persons, whether Central or State employees, are in the control of the EC in the discharge of electoral duties,” Justice Bagchi said.
The special sitting, merely 48 hours before counting started in West Bengal, was convened on a petition filed by the Trinamool challenging an April 13 circular issued by the State’s Additional Chief Electoral Officer directing that at least one counting supervisor and assistant at each counting table would be a Central government or Central Public Sector Unit employee.
The party, represented by advocates Kapil Sibal and Sanchit Garga, said the circular was a “textbook example of an unjust executive action”.
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