West Bengal’s municipal election preparations moved forward after the Calcutta High Court directed the State Election Commission to erase data from stored electronic voting machines and reuse them, subject to exclusions involving three Kolkata municipal wards and Contai municipality. The commission told the court on Wednesday that it was prepared to conduct municipal elections in November and December.
The direction came after the State Election Commission approached the High Court citing a shortage of electronic voting machines for the upcoming municipal polls. The commission had said that several EVMs used in earlier elections remained in storage because of litigation connected with past municipal elections. Releasing those machines for fresh use, it said, would resolve the immediate shortage.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Rabindranath V. Ghuge and Justice Om Narayan Rai directed that the data stored on the relevant machines be erased before they are used again. The machines connected with three Kolkata municipal wards and Contai municipality were excluded from the direction, according to the report by Anandabazar.
The issue had been examined during an earlier hearing on October 12, when the bench asked whether information from the EVMs involved in the cases could be transferred to hard drives and whether earlier data had to be removed before the machines were used in another election. The commission told the court that both processes were possible.
The commission’s request was linked to the expected municipal elections in Kolkata and several other municipalities during November and December. The availability of EVMs has become a logistical question for the State Election Commission because machines connected with earlier cases have remained preserved rather than being returned to the pool available for deployment.
The court’s direction does not cover all machines connected with municipal-election litigation. Additional Advocate General Bilwadal Bhattacharya told the bench that a Supreme Court stay applied only to Contai municipality, while matters concerning other municipalities remained before the High Court. The exclusion of the three Kolkata wards and Contai therefore keeps those cases separate from the wider process of preparing machines for reuse.
The order places data erasure and the handling of preserved machines at the centre of the commission’s operational planning. It also shows how litigation involving individual municipal contests can affect the wider availability of election equipment across the state. The commission’s stated November-December readiness remains linked to the resolution of these equipment-related arrangements and the court directions governing the machines.
