Making stinging observations on the state election commission’s (SEC) conduct of the poll process so far, the Division Bench of Justice Biswanath Somaddar and Justice Aniruddha Mukherjee of Calcutta High Court on Monday asked the SEC counsel whether the commission had woken up after the court had given the “wake-up call” last week.

The commission has been mired in a controversy with the Opposition accusing it of acting at the behest of the ruling Trinamul Congress which “prevented” thousands of Opposition candidates from filing nominations for the panchayat poll.

The state election commissioner AK Singh during the day denied he had received any threats on his life from some state ministers and top Trinamul leaders or his telephones were being tapped as had been alleged on Sunday by the BJP national president Rahul Sinha.

He said anyone doing so would be brought to book by the commission. But, Mr Sinha insisted Mr Singh’s denial only reinforced his allegations as the commissioner had kept mum throughout on Sunday when the allegations were made at a meet-the-Press programme.

“The commissioner has opened his mouth only on Monday, 24 hours after Trinamul secretary-general Partha Chatterjee told the media on Sunday that Mr Singh should deny the allegations.”

“I will have to verify the election model code of conduct before taking any actions against the party for making such false allegations,” Mr Singh said. The Division Bench asked the commission to produce by tonight details of complaints it had received from candidates alleging they hadn’t been allowed to file their nominations for the state panchayat election.

The commission counsel NC Behani submitted to the court documents on charges given by CPI-M without checking the e-mails received by the commission from candidates unable to file nominations.

Flaying the commission, the court pointed out : “Did the court ask the commission to perform a Herculean task by asking it to go through and sort out from the list of those who appealed by electronic mode to submit their nomination within stipulated time ? We are going by what your records show and not the appellant claims.”

The court said if it found that the SEC had not taken into account the court’s observations, it would have to consider the poll panel’s actions. SEC counsel NC Behani told the court that 340 complaints, some along with the copies of nominations, were received by the commission on the last day of filing papers ~ April 23.

Asked by the Division Bench what it had done with the complaints, the commission counsel submitted that it forwarded those to the district magistrates and superintendents of police concerned.

Producing the papers of over 800 intending candidates, who were allegedly denied the chance to file nominations by “hooligans” at different government offices in the state, CPI-M’s counsel Bikash Bhattacharya alleged that the figures provided by the SEC were not true.

He submitted that when the SEC had allowed nine candidates to file their nominations through WhatsApp, it should also allow others, who were unable to file their papers physically at the designated government offices, to do so through various electronic modes available.

The commission counsel opposed the prayer, saying the West Bengal Panchayat Act did not envisage electronic filing. Nominations of nine candidates were accepted pursuant to a specific order of a Single Bench of this court, it was submitted.

The BJP national secretary said the only way to know the truth about how the state election commissioner was being treated by the ruling party is to get a secret statement by the commissioner before the court.