HC junks contempt plea against SEC for deferring civic polls

KOLKATA: The Calcutta High Court has dismissed a contempt petition against the State Election Commission (SEC), which claimed that the poll body disobeyed an order of the court to postpone elections to four municipal corporations by four to six weeks.

In its order which was uploaded on the High Court website on Wednesday, a division bench presided over by Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava observed that it was only a suggestion to the SEC, and not an order, to consider whether the polls can be postponed by such time in view of the surge in COVID-19 cases in the state.

Dismissing the petition, the bench said, "We are of the opinion that there is no deliberate non-compliance or violation of the order of this court by the respondents herein, hence no case for initiating the contempt proceedings is made out."

The plaintiff questioned why the Commission did not comply with HC's order to postpone the polls in four municipalities - Bidhannagar, Chandannagar, Asansol and Siliguri the state for four to

six weeks. In the order issued on Monday, the bench said that the court had not issued any positive direction to postpone the elections for a particular period of time. "The period of 4 to 6 weeks mentioned in the order was only suggestive leaving it up to the State Election Commission to take a decision in this regard within a time bound period," the bench observed.