The West Bengal government has moved the Supreme Court against a Calcutta High Court order that indefinitely stayed the announcement of Kolkata municipal election dates, opening a fresh legal contest over the proposed expansion and restructuring of the city’s wards.
According to a report by Anandabazar, the state filed its case on Friday through the additional chief secretary of the Urban Development and Municipal Affairs Department. The matter is likely to be heard by the Supreme Court next week, although no hearing date has been confirmed in the report.
The dispute centres on the decision to increase the number of Kolkata Municipal Corporation wards from 144 to 209. The state’s notification on the ward restructuring was challenged in the High Court on September 11 by Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Dipu Das. The petitioner alleged that the delimitation process gave greater importance to electoral rolls than population figures and claimed that the exercise was intended to provide political advantage to the Bharatiya Janata Party.
The petition also questioned whether the municipal commissioner had the legal authority to recommend the ward restructuring. The petitioner sought a stay on the state notification before the election schedule was announced, arguing that the legal challenge could lose practical significance once the poll process formally began.
The High Court’s single bench initially declined to stop the election announcement. The court noted that the petitioner had not raised objections when the draft ward arrangement was published. It directed the state and other parties to file affidavits, giving the state three weeks and the petitioners one week to submit a response. The matter could be brought before the court for a hearing around November 30, according to the report.
The petitioner subsequently approached a division bench on November 4, expressing concern that the election schedule could be announced before the single bench resolved the case. The division bench, comprising Justice Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya and Justice Arjun Ray Mukherjee, then ordered an indefinite stay on the announcement of the Kolkata municipal election schedule on November 6. The order will remain in force until the single bench disposes of the case.
The state’s Supreme Court filing challenges that division bench order before the single bench proceedings are completed. The immediate effect is that the Kolkata Municipal Corporation election timetable cannot be announced while the High Court’s stay remains operative, unless the Supreme Court modifies or sets aside the order.
The case places the city’s election schedule and the proposed ward structure in the same legal dispute. The Supreme Court’s response will determine whether the state can proceed with announcing the municipal poll timetable while the ward delimitation challenge is pending, or whether the High Court proceedings must conclude first.
