The Calcutta high court on Monday observed that the authorities should be fair before the court while hearing the challenge by Indian Secular Front (ISF) over the reassignment of the party symbol and also act in a manner to avoid future complications so that the court isn’t burdened with litigations.
The court also questioned whether there was any “connivance” between the poll body and the newly formed Democratic Trinamool Congress (DTC).
The bench questioned the rationale behind allotting the symbol to a new party despite it being disputed, without considering the ISF’s application which was before the court on September 17. “General elections and by-elections are separate. There is no impediment in the law to allot the ‘envelope’ symbol to the Democratic Trinamool Congress.
A high court bench of justice Krishna Rao was hearing the petition filed by the ISF, challenging the reassignment of its “envelop” symbol to one of the Trinamool Congress factions — the DTC — by the Election Commission of India (ECI) ahead of the upcoming assembly bypolls on October 6. He also said it was “not a correct observation” by the court that he was being dictated by a political party and that there was no reason for such an allegation. This not a case of apparent illegality,” Chowdhury said. The EC counsel said there were specific provisions under the Symbols Order and The Conduct of Election Rules for allotment of free symbols in bypolls. Chowdhury said after the conclusion of a general election, symbols allotted to unrecognised parties become free and can be allotted to anyone. Chowdhury said there was no impediment to allotting a symbol to a party in a bypoll and maintained that the decision was correct.
However, the ECI’s counsel, advocate Jishnu Chowdhury, submitted that allotment of symbols was within the commission’s discretion and that it had acted according to law to allot the symbols to both the parties. Appearing for the petitioners, advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya argued that the discretion must be exercised reasonably and rationally and “cannot be absolute like an autocrat”. The ECI’s counsel said the private respondent’s lawyer had not told him anything.
