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KOLKATA: The Calcutta High Court , in an unprecedented order, directed the State Election Commission on Tuesday to treat nine Independent candidates’ nomination papers filed on WhatsApp as valid. These nine petitioners “shall be entitled to contest the 2018 panchayat election from their respective constituencies based on (these) nominations”, it added.

The order followed the petitioners’ plea that they had failed to submit their nomination papers physically but had managed to send them via WhatsApp to the Bhangar-II block development officer.

The HC had asked the SEC on Monday to help these nine persons file their nominations and asked them to file the papers at the Alipore sub-divisional officer’s office. But one of the candidates, Sharmistha Choudhury, told the HC on Tuesday that they were made to wait at the office; miscreants later assaulted them and snatched their documents and stopped them from filing their papers. But she and the others sent the BDO their papers via WhatsApp.

Justice Subrata Talukdar then ordered that the SEC should treat the nominations sent on WhatsApp “as valid nomination papers”. The matter will be heard again on April 30, two days after the last day of withdrawal.

Constitutional expert and senior lawyer Arvind Dattar refused to see this as a precedent. “The HC order related to a special set of circumstances, which infringed on the basic democratic right of an individual. This cannot be a precedent,” he said. Senior lawyer and former state advocate-general Jayanta Mitra concurred: “An extraordinary situation called for an extraordinary remedy.”

