Supreme Court Closes Case on West Bengal Vote Counting Supervisors

New Delhi: The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Saturday assured the Supreme Court that it will comply with a circular governing appointment of vote counting supervisors for the assembly election in West Bengal. Its counsel said that the vote counting on May 4 will be done in the presence of a state government nominee.

The undertaking was recorded by a division bench comprising justices PS Narasimha and Joymalya Bagchi, who were hearing a plea by the ruling All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) against the chief electoral officer's decision to deploy only central government employees as vote counting supervisors for the state polls.

The bench recorded the submission of the ECI's counsel that the election watchdog will follow its circular in "letter and spirit". Hence, the bench refused to pass any orders on the appeal filed by the ruling party against a Calcutta High Court order.

"No further orders are needed in the SLP (special leave petition)," the bench said in its order.

The matter was urgently heard today by the top court since the votes are scheduled to be counted on May 4. The AITC had approached the Supreme Court against the order of the high court, which had dismissed its plea on Thursday.

The high court said that it is the prerogative of the ECI to appoint the counting supervisor and counting assistant either from the state government or the central government.

"This Court does not find any illegality for appointing counting supervisor and counting assistant from the Central Government/Central PSU employee instead of State Government employee," the high court had said.

The high court had further observed that the AITC can later file petitions to challenge the results in case it finds the central government employees favouring BJP candidates.