But an apology bypassing the real issue appears meaningless; as the complaint, a defeated UP chairman candidate is yet to get the legal remedy against vote rigging and other electoral irregularities in election held early this year.
In other words, EC’s defiance to give justice to the complaint remained as it is raising question about the unquestionable neutrality and credibility of the constitutional body that it should be.
The HC bench of Justice M Moazzam Husain and Justice Md Badruzzaman passed the order of exemption accepting the apology tendered by the chief election commissioner, four election commissioners and a senior assistant secretary of the commission.
CEC Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad, four election commissioners and senior assistant secretary Mizanur Rahman on November 26 appeared before the HC registrar office and sworn an affidavit offering the unconditional apology to the HC for not complying with the court’s order that has asked the EC to dispose of a complaint about anomalies in the elections to Charbhairabi union parishad in Chandpur’s Haimchar, as per the report.
They did not dispose of the complaint “on mistaken idea of facts and law”, as per a statement of their lawyer which appeared on the report .Aggrieved, Zahidul Islam, a chairman candidate of the union, filed a writ petition with the HC in April. Following the petition, the court asked the EC to dispose of the complaint.
In April, the High Court had directed the commission to dispose of the complaint filed by chairman candidate of Charbhairabi union of Haimchar Upazila in Chandpur Jahidul Islam regarding various irregularities in the elections. The commission, however, flouted the High Court order asking all complainers including Jahidul Islam to move to the Election Tribunal for resolving over thousands of allegations lodged with the commission following massive irregularities during the UP polls held from March 22 to June 4.
What is interesting is that although the EC offered an apology it did not address the main complaint for which it apologized. In other words, the complaint filed by Jahidul Islam remains valid and even though the EC published a gazette notification it explicitly stated that no scope remained for it to reinvestigate the matter unless it was specifically directed to do so by the Honourable Court.
But the gazette notification does not address the main issue and simply states that those elected should be sworn in if no pending legal cases exist with respect to the election. So the real issue of voter irregularities regarding the elections have not been addressed at all. Simply tendering an apology to the Honourable Court does little to address this point, which remains in obfuscation.
Hence the real issue of voter rigging and manipulation remain unresolved. Instead of doing nothing the EC should immediately take steps to resolve the situation, and look into the matters of vote rigging. It is shameful that it can’t do the job it was supposed to do. Instead of remaining aloof it should be active in investigating all claims or it will lose any moral authority and tarnish its public image.
