SC rejects plea difficult EC’s choice to carry WB Assembly polls in eight phases

The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a plea difficult the Election Commission’s choice to conduct meeting elections over eight phases in West Bengal and in search of to bar the BJP and its leaders from utilizing “Jai Shri Ram” as a slogan through the marketing campaign.
A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde initially advised the petitioner to method the Calcutta High Court.
“I rely upon a judgement. This is not the matter of election petition. One party is using the religious slogan. Why should I go to the high court? ” advocate M L Sharma, the petitioner within the case, advised the bench.
“You are asking for prosecution. How can we pass such an order. The only power lied with the high court, that to the election petition,” the bench, which additionally comprised Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian, advised Sharma.
When the petitioner referred a 1978 judgement of the apex courtroom, the bench requested him to point out the paragraphs within the verdict saying the highest courtroom can entertain a plea concerning malpractice in campaigning when the ballot course of begins.

Sharma stated the matter be heard tomorrow, and the bench stated, “We can not learn it time and again, learn it proper now.
“Alright, we don’t agree with you. Dismissed,”  the bench added.
The plea had sought the apex courtroom’s course to cease the ballot panel from conducting eight-phase elections in West Bengal, alleging that it violates Article 14 (proper to life) and Article 21 (proper to life) of the Constitution.
On February 26, the Election Commission had introduced the schedule for meeting elections to be held in West Bengal, Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.
While the meeting polls in West Bengal can be held over eight rounds from March 27-April 29, polling in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry can be held in a single part on April 6 and in Assam over three phases.

In his plea, Sharma had additionally sought a course to the CBI to register an FIR into the alleged chanting of non secular slogans throughout electioneering in West Bengal.
The chanting of “Jai Shri Ram, other religious slogans are creating disharmony” and is an offence beneath the Indian Penal Code and the Representation of the People Act, 1951, the plea had stated.
“Whether using a provocative religious slogan ‘Jai Shri Ram’ is for electoral benefits as well as others is not violated S.123(3) & 125 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951,” reads the authorized query raised within the plea.