IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT CALCUTTA CONSTITUTIONAL WRIT JURISDICTION APPELLATE SIDE RESERVED ON: 02.12.2025 DELIVERED ON: 12.12.2025 PRESENT:

THE HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE REETOBROTO KUMAR MITRA WPA NO. 14994 OF 2025 SAIDUL MOLLA AND ANR.

- VERSUS –

THE STATE OF WEST BENGAL AND ORS.

Appearance:

Mr. Sauradeep Dutta.

Mr. Rajdeep Bhattacharya.

Mr. Himadree Ghosh. ….. for the Petitioners Mr. Pradeep Kumar Roy, Sr. Adv.

Mr. Partha Sarathi Pal.

Mr. Asit Dutta.

….. for the respondents no. 2, 4 & 5 Mr. Debabrata Saha Roy, Sr. Adv.

Mr. Neil Basu.

Mr. Sankha Biswas.

Mr. Aridipta Paul.

….. for the added respondents Mr. Srijan Nayak.

Ms. Rituparna Maitra.

…… for Co-operative Election Commission Reetobroto Kumar Mitra, J.:

1. The petitioners challenge the election process undertaken by the respondent authorities, particularly the respondent nos. 2 to 5 and the respondent no. 6, as well as the notification of June 20th, 2025 and consequentially seek fresh notifications for conducting the election of the respondent no. 6.

2. The petitioners are members of the Piyasara Station Paty Samabay Krishi Unnayan Samity Limited (hereinafter the Samity, being the respondent no. 6). The petitioners allege that the Assistant Returning Officer (respondent no. 7) of the said Samity on May 21st, 2025 published a draft voter list, notifying all members of the Samity in respect thereof.

3. The respondent no. 7 published a schedule for the election of the board of directors of the Samity on June 4th, 2025.

4. As it appears from the schedule, the nomination forms for the elections were to be distributed and submitted between 12 PM on June 9th, 2025, and concluding at 3 PM on June 10th, 2025. The scrutiny of the nomination forms was scheduled for June 12th, 2025, and the list of valid nominees to be published on the same day. The list of valid candidates would be published on June 13th, 2025, and the polls were to be held on July 13th, 2025, from 11 AM to 3 PM, followed by the counting of votes and declaration of results on that same day.

5. The petitioners’ further case is that they found from the notification of June 4th, 2025 that the venues for the distribution and the filing of the nomination papers were separate. In fact the filing of nomination papers would be at Tarakeswar Thana Samabay Krishi Bipanan Samity, Tarakeswar which is almost 12 KM away from the office of the Samity. These two samities, namely respondent no. 6 and the Tarakeswar Thana Samabay, are not linked to each other and fall within different jurisdictional Registrars.

6. The petitioners allege that they had tried to submit their nomination forms at Tarakeswar Thana Samabay Krishi Bipanan Samity when they were stopped by the contesting group members and were not allowed to file their respective nomination papers. Thus, finding no alternative, the petitioners issued a complaint/legal notice on June 9th, 2025 to the respondent no. 4.

7. The petitioners, without any alternative, proceeded to file their nomination by electronic mail to the Co-operation Directorate, Hooghly Range Office on June 10th, 2025.

8. The petitioners allege that they had been forcibly stopped from filing their nominations and threatened by the contesting group members. Furthermore, even though they had approached the police authorities, no assistance was extended to them.

9. The petitioners lodged a complaint with the Joint Registrar of Cooperative Societies (hereinafter the JRCS) who was the Returning Officer of the concerned district regarding the nomination schedule. Pursuant to this complaint, the JRCS had written to the West Bengal Cooperative Election Commission seeking guidance as to how and in what manner the complaint of the petitioners was to be dealt with.

10. In response to the email of June 9th, 2025 from the JRCS, the Secretary of the Election Commission issued his letter of June 11th, 2025 with certain directions to the JRCS. The directions of June

11th, 2025 may be summarised as under:

a. The JRCS was requested to fix up a parti