Calcutta High Court on Tuesday (April 23) expressed displeasure over violence during the recent Ram Navami celebrations in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district and asked “what is the use of conducting elections when people cannot celebrate an occasion in peace for 8 hours” and added that it may propose deferment of the Lok Sabha Elections in Baharampur seat. The court’s observations came while hearing two petitions seeking CBI and NIA probe into the clashes on April 13 and 17 in the constituency.
A division bench being led by Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam said that if two sets of people are fighting when the Model Code of Conduct is in force, then they do not require any elected representative "because the election will cause another problem."
The court made these observations verbally during the hearing, however, said in the written order that it would consider how the matter is to be probed after an affidavit on the progress of investigations into the incidents is filed by the West Bengal government.
It asked the state to file the response by April 26, the next date of the hearing.
The PILs were filed by Vishwa Hindu Parishad's (VHP) Kolkata area convenor Amiya Sarkar and the regional convenor of Muslim Rashtriya Mancha (MRM), West Bengal and Sikkim, S A Afzal.
What did the court say on Election Commission?
During the hearing, the bench also proposed to "make a recommendation to the Election Commission of India that when people cannot celebrate an occasion in peace for eight hours, they shall not be entitled to elect their representatives to the parliament, so that the election to Baharampur constituency shall be deferred."
The court asked what is the use of conducting elections "when two sets of people are unable to reconcile themselves to a six or eight-hour programme."
"If people can't live in peace and harmony, we will countermand the elections, we will say the Election Commission shall not hold parliamentary elections in this district," said the court, expressing displeasure at the events in Murshidabad.
(With PTI inputs)
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