Calcutta HC asks State Election Commission to accept filing of nominations via WhatsApp
In an unusual move, the Calcutta High Court on Tuesday asked the State Election Commission (SEC) to accept the candidature of nine candidates who had sent their papers to the block development officer (BDO) through WhatsApp for the West Bengal panchayat elections.
The court asked the commission to make arrangements for the filing of the nominations of 11 candidates of the Polerhat II gram panchayat at Bhangar in South 24 Parganas district after they claimed that they were being prevented from reaching the office designated for the purpose by armed hooligans.
Justice Subrata Talukdar even directed the SEC secretary to treat the nominations of the nine candidates as valid and said that no fuzziness would be accepted by the court over technicalities.
Meanwhile, petitioner Sharmistha Chowdhury on Tuesday told the court of Justice Talukdar that nine of the 11 candidates filed their nominations using WhatsApp.
The candidates had sent photos of their filled up nomination papers to the authorities concerned through WhatsApp as they were manhandled and their papers were snatched at the Alipore Survey Building where they had been directed to go by the commission to file their nominations, she claimed.
Chowdhury also claimed that as the fees for the nominations could not be paid as the original papers were snatched and that the nominations could be treated as invalid during scrutiny on this ground.
- With agency inputs
