Court calls for steps to ensure fair elections

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 18

Less than 24 hours before the zila parishad and panchayat samiti elections, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today directed the “stakeholders involved in the process to take appropriate measures for ensuring fairness”.

The Bench of Justice Mahesh Grover and Justice Mahabir Singh Sindhu also gave the State and other official respondents the liberty to adopt “any or all such measures that may enhance the fairness of the election process, including the installation of CCTVs etc.”

Taking up the petition filed against Punjab and other respondents by Buta Singh Bairagi through counsel Saurabh Kapoor, the Bench said the plea was based on the petitioner’s apprehension that the zila parishad elections in Moga were likely to witness irregularities.

The Bench added that a prayer was, as such, made for having in place adequate arrangements to thwart any untoward incident, such as the installation of cameras outside polling stations and other satisfactory measures to ensure safety of the ballot boxes. The Bench said it could not straightway be presumed that the sanctity of the election process would be permitted to be defied by the State or those responsible for the conduct of free and fair elections.

“We cannot lend any credence to the apprehension of the petitioner, but keeping in view the fact that nobody can deny the necessity of a fair election with no violence or irregularity, we deem it appropriate to direct the official stakeholders involved in the process to take appropriate measures to prove the apprehension of the petitioner wrong,” the Bench added.

Moga: Following the HC order, the district administration ordered the installation of CCTV cameras in at least 30 polling booths spread across 13 villages. Videography has also been ordered in at least 60 polling booths in more than 25 villages of the district.