The Division Bench of Justice Biswanath Somadder and Justice Arindam Mukherjee of Calcutta High Court observed on 8 May the State Election Commission, being a Constitutional body has to act fairly, transparently and independently to advance the democratic principles by allowing willing candidates to contest and at the same time provide for more options to the electorate to choose.

The observation was inadvertently put erroneously in The Statesman on 9 May as “As the commission has to act fairly, it should have accepted nomination by email to advance democratic principles to let the electorate choose their representatives by enhancing voting rights.”

In the face of allegations, the SEC should have acted with caution and diligence. It ought to have considered allowing filing of nomination through e-mail and also accepted such nominations,” the court had observed.

“The right guaranteed to the electorate to exercise its voting rights gets substantially enhanced by wider participation of candidates in the election process as the voter can then exercise his/her voting rights with a large option i.e. to choose from more candidates, the persons by whom he/she wants to be represented.

The commission, in order to ensure the same and being the supreme authority while the election process has been set to the motion, should have ensured willing candidates to participate in order to enable a voter to exercise his/her options in a more prudent manner.

The commission, therefore, ought to have allowed nominations being filed by all intending candidates, particularly in the backdrop of allegations of candidates being prevented from filing nominations, which the commission itself had noticed while pasing order on 9 April, by allowing such nomination by e-mail instead of disallowing on the ground that the Act of 2003 or the rules framed there- under does not provide for the same.”

The same news report further stated that the court observed: “Submitting nomination by e-mail prevents violence and loss of life as poll process involves participation, it is against democratic principles to shut out any bona fide candidate” instead of the court’s observation “The State Election Commission has been constituted under section 3 of West Bengal State Election Commission Act, 1994 with constitutional sanction.

It therefore does not strictly come within the ambit of section 6 (1)(a) of the Act of 2000 to be a body or agency owned or controlled by the appropriate government. Similarly, the state government is not called upon to make rules in terms of section 90 of the Act of 2000 in respect of filing of nomination forms through e-mail.

It is for the State Election Commission, being a constitutional body/authority- to provide for the same, as filing of nomination through e-mail invariably prevents large-scale violence. centering around the panchayat elections and above all, bloodshed and loss of precious human life.

The court had further observed: “The fact remains that an election process itself involves participation. To shut-out, an intending bona fide candidate from participarting in the process, thwarts the very basis democratic principles on which it stands.”