The Election Commission of India (ECI) has transferred 79 officials in West Bengal since March 15, senior advocate Kalyan Banerjee told the Calcutta High Court on Monday while representing a petitioner who called the orders “unprecedented, arbitrary, and malafide,” according to lawyers who attended the hearing.
Among those transferred are chief secretary Nandini Chakraborty, director general of police Peeyush Pandey and Kolkata Police commissioner Supratim Sarkar. A bench, led by the Chief Justice, heard the petition.
Banerjee, who is also a Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha member, argued that Article 324 of the Constitution is a “plenary provision” that gives ECI the power to discharge its functions and conduct elections. He argued that ECI cannot act arbitrarily or violate laws framed by the legislature.
“The chief secretary has to run the state, not just conduct elections. Till now the number is 79. By the end of the polls, all IAS and IPS officers will be removed. This has not been done in any of the other states where elections are being held. Only 15 officers were transferred in Bengal during the 2021 (assembly) polls,” Banerjee told the court, according to lawyers who witnessed the hearing.
Arka Nag, a Kolkata resident, filed the petition on Friday, challenging the transfers and seeking a stay order.
His petition said, “This wholesale dismantling of the state’s administrative machinery is not a bona fide exercise of power under Article 324 of the Constitution.”
“The said drastic action is a direct and immediate consequence of the impeachment motion initiated by the elected representatives of the people of West Bengal against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. The timing and scale of the transfers betray a clear retaliatory motive, amounting to malice in law and fact,” Nag said in his petition.
Banerjee told the court that it was mentioned in the impeachment motion that ECI was acting in a biased manner. He also referred to the Supreme Court giving directions on how the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral roll in Bengal is to completed by allowing voters to appeal before tribunals held by judicial officers.
“Even the honourable Supreme Court expressed displeasure over ECI’s actions. Can ECI act arbitrarily while exercising powers under Article 324? Can they destroy the federal structure or interfere in the administration?” Banerjee said, according to lawyers.
He also argued that the transfer orders defied logic. “ECI said the transferred people should not be attached to the election process but they were sent to other states to participate in it. How can they be disqualified here and not there? Five states are holding elections. If they need so many observers, they can take them from other states,” he said.
EC’s lawyers argued that no action taken so far violated the parameters of law. The state’s lawyers, too, sought a stay on the transfers saying administrative work was affected.
The court said that it must examine whether the transfers adversely affected public interest and asked the state if it felt that ECI crossed its jurisdiction.
The next hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has protested these transfers and written multiple letters to ECI. In a post on X last week, Banerjee called the transfers “deliberate design to seize control of West Bengal.” “What we are witnessing is nothing short of an undeclared emergency and an unpromulgated form of President’s rule driven by political vendetta, not democratic principles,” she wrote.
The Bharatiya Janata Party’s state unit president Samik Bhattacharya said: “EC is doing its duty in five poll-bound states but strangely only the Trinamool Congress is making noises.”
