EC apologises to High Court

The chief election commissioner and four other election commissioners have offered unconditional apology to the High Court for not taking complaints from candidates into cognizance.

The commission advised the aggrieved candidates of the recently held Union Parishad elections to go to court -- an advice that is considered contempt of court, a commissioner and a lawyer confirmed to Prothom Alo.

The High Court said the election commission has committed a quasi-criminal offence by advising the candidates to go to the court, instead of resolving the complaints.

CEC Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad, and commissioners Abdul Mubarak, Abu Hafiz, Zabed Ali and Mohammad Shahnewaz submitted the application seeking the unconditional apology to the Supreme Court's registrar office on Saturday.

The commission admitted its advice as a mistake but said it was unintentional. In the application, the election commission also pledged that this mistake would not be repeated.

Election commissioner Abu Hafiz told Prothom Alo that the commission could not take the right decision about the particular High Court directive since it was preoccupied with UP polls back then.

The commission was supposed to resolve the complaints filed by the candidates as per the High Court directive, not to advise them, he said.

Thousands of complaints were lodged with the election commission after UP polls. But, the commission did not take them into cognizance.

An aggrieved chairman candidate, Zahidul Islam from Chandpur's Haimchar upazila, filed a writ petition with the High Court in this connection.

The High Court ordered the election commission to resolve the complaints.

But the commission advised all the candidates to take their complaints to the election tribunal on 23 April through a letter.

On 14 November, the High Court said in a hearing that the election commission had committed contempt of court by not taking Zahidul Islam's complaints into cognizance.

The court said the election commission has the power to order the candidates but it cannot advise them.

Former election commissioner M Shakhawat Hossain told Prothom Alo that the commission can take action on any complaints submitted from the day of announcement of election schedule to the voting days as per the constitution.

The election commission has clearly made a mistake by not using this power, he pointed out.

Lawyer of election commission secretariat Mohammad Yasin Khan appealed to the court to submit the election commission's statement through a representative.

However, the court said there is no option for that as the election commission committed a quasi-criminal offence.

The election commissioners then appeared before the court and submitted their statement as per law, said Yasin Khan.

An EC secretariat official said the commission took the decision as per law. A section of it says any complaints filed about polls cannot be taken to any authority or a court other than the election tribunal.

The legal unit of the EC secretariat observed that aggrieved candidates will have to submit their complaints to the tribunal within 30 days of the gazette notification of poll results.

However, candidates can also submit application challenging the poll, as per law.

Law has given the election commission the authority to halt the polls if needed and it can also cancel the polls results.

Based on legal provisions, the legal unit gave its opinion that the commission has to take the complaints into cognizance. However, the commission ignored such advice.

The report originally published in Bangla in Prothom Alo print edition is rewritten in English by Kohinur Khyum.