 Early Times Report
JAMMU, Sept 26: The State administration in order to give benefit to a particular party in the ensuing Urban Local Bodies (ULB) elections is hell bent upon to throw every norms, rules, procedures and laws to wind.
The independent candidate from Ward No 10 Harish Gupta told Early Times that one such glaring example is the Nomination Paper (Form 6A) which is printed only for male members and also for the candidates of the party and not for independents. To add further, the Returning Officers of all the Jammu Municipal Corporation's 75 wards are unnecessarily harassing the candidates by asking irrelevant documents and things which are not compulsory for Nomination Papers of contenting candidates such as Affidavit as per specimen only attested by a Magistrate of 1st Class, Copy of Bank Account, Character Certificate, Qualification Certificates (which are not at all required), apart from the basic documents required for filing nominations, he said . Today another glaring example of throwing norms to the winds is witnessed at the office of Returning Officer, Ward No 10, 3 and 4 at Centre Basic School, Purani Mandi, Jammu as the scrutiny process was initiated without being video graphed as per the directions of Supreme Court of India. Sanjeev Kumar Sareen being an Advocate attended the office of the Returning Officer, Ward No 10, 3 and 4 at 10.55 am as Counsel for Harish Gupta, from Ward No 10, where only two candidates from Ward No 10 including Harish Gupta were present for scrutiny. After waiting for 15 minutes, the Returning Officer gave a 30 minutes speech in which nothing related to scrutiny was mentioned. At 11.45 am, he said all seven nomination forms are accepted without scrutiny and without giving an opportunity to all the candidates to check the files of all the candidates so that they might challenge if there may be any discrepancy.
This is clear cut violations of election process and one sided 'gunda gardi' of the State Administration so far the above mentioning Returning Officer is concerned. Sanjeev Kumar Sareen, Advocate said that he is not aware of the position of other Returning Officers, whether the same thing happened or in other offices of the Returning Officers, proper video graphed scrutiny takes place. |
