Bengal panchayat poll violence | SC says NHRC’s intentions may have been good, but it cannot act like a ‘super EC’

The top court said the NHRC’s “intentions”, by taking suo motu cognisance of media reports about poll violence in West Bengal, may have been good, but the human rights body had no business kickstarting a “parallel” system of supervision and control over the panchayat elections.

The Supreme Court on August 11 said the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) acted like a “super Election Commission of India” by appointing “a special human rights observer” to gather information about incidents of violence during the recently concluded panchayat elections in West Bengal.

A Bench headed by Justice B.V. Nagarathna upheld the Calcutta High Court order which quashed the NHRC’s June notification.

The Bench said the supervision and control of panchayat elections was the sole constitutional responsibility of the State Election Commission under Article 243K of the Constitution.

The top court said the NHRC’s “intentions”, by taking suo motu cognisance of media reports about poll violence in West Bengal, may have been good, but the human rights body had no business kickstarting a “parallel” system of supervision and control over the panchayat elections.

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“There were human rights’ violations taking place, that is why the NHRC took suo motu cognisance under Section 12 of the NHRC Act,” senior advocate Maninder Singh, for the human rights body, submitted.

But Justice Nagarathna said the Calcutta High Court had already intervened by that time and passed positive orders to curb the violence besides monitoring the situation.