Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday declined to intervene in the Panchayat election process in Bengal which may take place in May.
Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari had filed a public interest litigation (PIL) drawing the attention of the court to some alleged discrepancies that appeared in the criteria used to determine seat reservation for the 2023 local body polls.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava and Justice R Bharadwaj observed that any interference at this stage in connection with the PIL may lead to the postponement of the Panchayat elections in the state.
Adhikari claimed there were some discrepancies in the use of different criteria for the reservation of seats in various categories. During the hearing, the petitioner’s counsel argued that according to the election commission’s notification and guidelines, a household survey is being conducted to determine the backward class population size while the 2011 census was being used to calculate SC/ST population.
The petitioner’s contention was that the same yardstick should be applied for reserving seats for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes on the one hand and OBCs on the other.
The high court refused to interfere in the poll process and left it up to the State Election Commission to take a call on the points raised by Adhikari over the reservation of seats.
Meanwhile, the poll body has already issued guidelines to the Gram Panchayat, Panchayat Samiti and Zilla Parishad constituencies in 22 districts of the state for conducting elections smoothly. The guidelines given by the Commission shall be adhered to for the formation of polling parties, said a recent order issued by the Commission.