A division bench of the Calcutta High Court today quashed two Public Interest Litigations (PILs) filed by a Trinamool Congress leader challenging the decisions of the Election Commission of India’s large-scale transfers of bureaucrats and police officers in West Bengal. The case was argued in the court by the party’s Lok Sabha member, Kalyan Banerjee, who served as the petitioner’s counsel.

One of the two PILs was related to the transfer of bureaucrats and police officers at the topmost level, like Chief Secretary, Home Secretary, DGP, Police Commissioner, among others. The second PIL was related to the transfer of bureaucrats and police officers on the lower rung of general and police administration in the state, who are also the returning officers and inspectors of police. The Calcutta High Court’s Division Bench of Chief Justice Sujoy Paul and Justice Partha Sarathi Sen quashed the PILs, saying that the Commission was well within its right to transfer bureaucrats and police officers while the model code of conduct is in force.

The Division bench also rejected the petitioner’s argument that such large-scale transfers, and that too at the highest levels of general and police administration in West Bengal, were deliberate since the same was not applicable in other poll-bound states and territories. According to the division bench, there was no evidence that the Election Commission’s decision negatively impacted the functioning of the state machinery.