A division bench of Calcutta High Court barred 82 candidates of the Indian Secular Front (ISF) from participating in the panchayat polls from Bhangar in South 24 Parganas.

The bench of Justices Debandshu Basak and Rai Chattopadhyay, on Tuesday, granted a stay on the previous order of the single bench of Justice Amrita Sinha which directed the Bengal State Election Commission (SEC) to scrutinise and review rejected nomination papers of the 82 ISF candidates by June 28 and not declare 10 Trinamul Congress candidates to have won uncontested from the area.

The court has set the next date of hearing of the case after 15 days. Since, by then, the panchayat elections are scheduled to get over and their results declared, the candidates, for all practical purposes, would miss out on their chances of participating in the poll fray, it was understood.

The aggrieved candidates had moved the division bench alleging that the SEC was yet to act on the single bench order. Earlier they had moved the court stating their names were removed from the commission website despite filing nominations in accordance with a previous order of the court passed by Justice Rajasekhar Mantha. The petitioners submitted that, in the wake of large scale clashes between TMC and ISF supporters which rocked Bhangar for days leading up to the nomination filing deadline, the court had directed the commission to ensure armed police cover for the aspiring ISF candidates during their nomination filing process. Despite that, many candidates failed to make it to the local BDO office on time.

The commission argued that the nominations of the 82 candidates were cancelled since they were submitted post the expiry of submission deadline.

Incidentally, the Single Bench of Justice Sinha had also allowed 19 CPI-M candidates from the same area, whose names were similarly deleted by the SEC, a shot at fighting the polls. Even that order was set aside by a higher bench of the court in response to a challenge petition against it by the commission.

On Monday, the Chief Justice’s Division Bench had dismissed a Public Interest Litigation filed by ISF leader Naushad Siddiqui which prayed for increasing the number of phases of polls. The petition was rejected on grounds that a similar petition was already under adjudication by the court.