India News | No Need to Transfer Narsinghpur Collector, Two Cops: ECI to MP HC During Hearing on Former Cong MLA's Plea
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. The Election Commission of India (EC) on Thursday told the Madhya Pradesh High there was no need to transfer Narsinghpur district collector Riju Bafna and station house officers of Sua Tala and Themi police stations as there was no violation of code of conduct in connection with the November 17 Assembly polls.
Jabalpur, Oct 26 (PTI) The Election Commission of India (EC) on Thursday told the Madhya Pradesh High there was no need to transfer Narsinghpur district collector Riju Bafna and station house officers of Sua Tala and Themi police stations as there was no violation of code of conduct in connection with the November 17 Assembly polls.
The submissions came during the hearing of a plea by former Congress MLA Shekhar Choudhary who claimed the EC was not acting on his complaint seeking transfer of Narsinghpur collector and two station house officers, the poll body's counsel Siddarth Seth told PTI.
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One of the grounds in the petition seeking the transfers is a letter of October 12 written by BJP sitting MLA Jalam Singh appreciating the work of the district collector and two police officers at a time when the model code of conduct is in force, he said.
The petition came up for hearing before a division bench of Chief Justice R Malimath and Justice Vishal Mishra.
The EC also submitted that the MP chief electoral officer took cognizance of the complaint of Choudhary on October 17 and directed the General Administration Department (GAD) principal secretary to conduct a probe into the matter, he added.
The GAD principal secretary instructed the Jabalpur divisional commissioner (revenue) to inquire into the matter, and the latter, on October 24, served notices to ex-MLA Choudhary and BJP's Jalam Singh to file their responses, the counsel said.
"Choudhary and Singh both did not respond to the notices. The EC on the basis of the documents available on record arrived at the conclusion that the officers are dispensing their election duty in a free and fair manner," he added.
The petitioner's counsel Pankaj Dubey sought some time from the court to file reply to the EC's submissions.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)