Bengal Panchayat Polls: Supreme Court Refuses Re-election in Uncontested Seats

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected petitions by the CPI(M) and the BJP seeking to cancel elections to more than 20,000 local body seats in West Bengal that were won without a contest, giving relief to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Every one of those seats was won by Trinamool Congress candidates, and the opposition had claimed its candidates were stopped from filing nominations.

What the court ruled

A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, and including Justices D Y Chandrachud and A M Khanwilkar, used its special powers under Article 142 of the Constitution. It held that the 30-day period for filing election petitions, which had lapsed, would now run from the date the panchayat results are notified. Taking note of the allegations, it allowed anyone who was blocked from filing nominations to challenge the results through election petitions.

The court also overturned a Calcutta High Court order that had told the state election commission to accept nominations electronically, including by email and WhatsApp, saying the high court had erred.

The numbers

Of 58,692 seats in gram panchayats, panchayat samitis and zilla parishads, 20,159 went uncontested in the violence-hit polls held in May. On August 13, the court had asked the state election commission whether it had looked into why so many seats were uncontested. The commission argued that 33% of nearly 50,000 seats going uncontested was not alarming, that it could not make parties field candidates, and that it had acted on complaints and ordered re-polls. The state government and the Trinamool argued that no individual candidate had gone to court claiming to have been stopped.

Reactions

State Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee blamed the BJP, the Congress and the CPI(M) for holding up development work and said they should apologise. He said the ruling would let panchayat boards be formed to speed up pending projects. The BJP took some comfort from the fact that those with complaints can approach local courts.

See also: Election news

Originally published on 25 August 2018. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.

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