Kolkata, March 23 The preliminary hearing at the Calcutta High Court on the public interest litigation (POL) challenging Election Commission of India's (ECI) decision to transfer several top bureaucrats and police officers in poll-bound West Bengal concluded on Monday, with the ECI’s counsel arguing that the transfers of bureaucrats and police officers varies from state to state depending on the ground-level requirement in the state concerned.
The next hearing by the division bench of Chief Justice Sujoy Paul and Justice Partha Sarathi Sen on the PIL, which had specially objected to the transfers and replacements of erstwhile Chief Secretary, Nandini Chakraborty, erstwhile state home secretary, Jagdish Prasad Meena, and the erstwhile acting Director General of Police, Peeyush Pandey, has been fixed for Wednesday.
Appearing for the petitioner, Trinamool Congress MP and senior advocate Kalyan Banerjee questioned whether the ECI had the unbridled power to transfer, replace and send on deputation any bureaucrat or a police officer according to its sweet will.
"The ECI took the officers under its control since the beginning of the special intensive revision in the state. The Commission did not express dissatisfaction with the work of those officers during the SIR. Why are they suddenly being removed after the election is announced? This has not happened in any other poll-bound state except West Bengal," he argued.
Also arguing on behalf of the state government, West Bengal Advocate General Kishor Datta questioned whether the Commission had the authority to remove those officers who were not directly related to electoral duty.
In his counter-argument, the ECI counsel submitted that while the Commission surely did not have unbridled power, it had the authority to take any decision in order to make the polling process free & fair and violence-free.
"There are many reasons behind all these decisions. Voting is going on in five states and Union Territories; the situation is not the same everywhere. Officers have been transferred elsewhere. Actions are taken according to the situation prevailing in the state concerned," the ECI's counsel said.
He also submitted to the court the details of the bureaucrats and police officers transferred, replaced, and sent on deputation in other poll-bound states.
--IANS
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