A petition was filed in the Calcutta High Court on Friday against the Election Commission’s decision to transfer IAS and IPS officers in the run-up to the Bengal Assembly polls, scheduled for next month.
Challenging the “unprecedented, arbitrary, and malafide” actions of the commission, Arka Nag, a Kolkata resident (petitioner) has stated that the constitutional body has “effectuated a mass-scale transfer and removal of almost the entire senior administrative and police bureaucracy” of Bengal.
Among the officials removed from their offices by the commission, since the poll dates were announced on March 15, are the chief secretary, the home secretary, the director general of police and the commissioner of Kolkata Police.
Officers in the rank of inspector general, deputy inspector general, district police superintendents, district magistrates and the municipal commissioner of Kolkata Municipal Corporation have been replaced.
The petitioner has argued that the transfers of the officials were in retaliation to the impeachment motion moved by the Trinamool against the Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
“This wholesale dismantling of the state’s administrative machinery is not a bona fide exercise of power under Article 324 of the Constitution…” the petition stated. “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 CEC Gyanesh Kumar. The timing and scale of the transfers betray a clear retaliatory motive, amounting to malice in law and fact.”
The CEC has been made a party in the case which was placed before a division bench led by the Chief Justice Sujoy Paul of Calcutta High Court.
“Such actions create an administrative vacuum, paralyse the governance of the state, are gravely prejudicial to the public interest, and fundamentally violate the principles of federalism, which form a part of the basic structure of the Constitution,” the petition stated.
The petition stated: “The widespread change in the administration of the government of West Bengal is intended to make the electorate believe that there is an unwritten emergency, like President’s rule.”
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee had on Thursday called out the commission’s transfer spree as a “deliberate design to seize control of West Bengal” through “coercion and institutional manipulation.”
“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,” Mamata wrote on her X.
Citing the examples of other poll-bound states, the petitioner has described the EC’s actions as vindictive as “nothing of the same sort is taking place in any other state where the Assembly elections are due.”
The petition states 46 IAS and IPS officers have been transferred since the elections were announced.
Sources in the state police said the abrupt changes could create problems in maintaining law and order during the election process despite the presence of the central paramilitary forces.
“The IGs and DIGs have a supervisory role. Officers in the rank of SPs and DSPs are who have to deal with regular law and order cases. a new SP or DSP will need time to assess the situation in a particular district,” said an IPS officer.
A senior officer, who did not want to be named, said the problems would increase manifold if the officers-in-charge and inspectors-in-charge were removed.
“An officer-in-charge needs at least three months to familiarise with the area under his jurisdiction. The OCs know the trouble spots in the area. They also known in case of a breakdown in law and order which political leader from which party to approach. A new OC who has been appointed just before the elections does not have that kind of time,” the officer said. “If the OCs themselves are not aware how will they coordinate with the central forces who have come from outside the state?”