Special Supreme Court bench to hear today TMC plea on counting staff

The high court dismissed the AITC’s petition on Thursday, saying there was no illegality in the poll panel’s decision to appoint counting supervisors and assistants from central government and Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) employees, instead of the state government staff.

Filing an urgent appeal on Friday, the AITC approached the Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant with a request to constitute a bench on Saturday as the counting of votes in West Bengal is scheduled on May 4. Polling for the 294-member Assembly was held in two phases on April 23 and April 29.

A bench of justices PS Narasimha and Joymalya Bagchi will take up the plea filed by advocate Sanchit Garga against the ECI, the West Bengal chief electoral officer (CEO) and the state additional CEO who issued the order under challenge on April 13. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal along with other senior advocates are expected to argue the petition before the top court.