PIL Moves Supreme Court Against EC’s Appointment of Ajay Pal Sharma, Cites Alleged Partisanship

(Judicial Quest News Network)

New Delhi, April 29, 2026 — In a pointed legal challenge that could reshape oversight mechanisms in India’s electoral democracy, a public interest litigation (PIL) has been lodged in the Supreme Court of India, demanding the immediate revocation of Uttar Pradesh cadre IPS officer Ajay Pal Sharma’s appointment as an election observer for the ongoing West Bengal Assembly elections.

Filed by petitioner Aditya Das, the petition meticulously dissects the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) decision, framing it as a potential breach of statutory neutrality under the Representation of the People Act, 1951 (RPA), and calls for a forensic judicial audit of the observer’s conduct.

At the heart of the PIL lies a rigorous invocation of Section 20B of the RPA, 1951, which statutorily mandates election observers to function as impartial “institutional sentinels” insulating the electoral process from bias and fortifying public trust.

The petitioner alleges that Sharma’s deployment flouts this provision, transforming a neutral safeguard into an instrument of intimidation.

Das argues that Sharma’s track record as a self-styled “encounter specialist” in Uttar Pradesh marked by high-profile extrajudicial operations renders him predisposed to partisan overreach, particularly in a politically charged theatre like West Bengal, where inter-party hostilities run high.

The controversy erupted into the public domain via viral social media posts from the Bhartiya Janata Party’s (BJP) West Bengal unit, spotlighting Sharma’s assignment as police observer in the volatile South 24 Parganas district.

Circulating videos, now under evidentiary scrutiny, purportedly capture Sharma delivering peremptory threats to family members of Trinamool Congress (TMC) candidate Jehangir Ali a sequence the TMC has decried as “brazen electoral bullying.” The PIL urges the Supreme Court to convene an investigative bench to authenticate these clips, cross-reference them against Sharma’s prior conduct records, and probe whether they constitute a dereliction of the observer’s core mandate: unobtrusive monitoring sans political coloration.

This Supreme Court intervention follows a swift rebuff two days prior by the Calcutta High Court, which dismissed an analogous challenge, reasoning that mid-poll judicial meddling imperils the “purity of the electoral timeline.” Yet, the PIL counters this restraint by drawing on seminal precedents like Mohinder Singh Gill v. Chief Election Commissioner (1978), which enshrined the RPA’s primacy in upholding “free and fair” polls, and Union of India v. Association for Democratic Reforms (2002), mandating transparency in appointments to avert “perceived arbitrariness.”

In seeking interim relief, the petition prays for:

• an ex-parte stays on Sharma’s duties pending a full hearing;
  • (ii) directives for the ECI to furnish appointment rationales, including vetting dossiers and conflict-of-interest disclosures; and
  • (iii) guidelines mandating psychological neutrality assessments for future observers, akin to those in international electoral norms under the Venice Commission’s Code of Good Practice.

Legal eagles anticipate the Supreme Court will soon list the matter, subjecting the ECI’s nomination calculus to the acid test of Article 324 (superintendence of elections) read with RPA safeguards. Should the bench find prima facie infirmity evidenced by Sharma’s alleged overreach it could precipitate a landmark ruling on observer accountability, potentially recalibrating the ECI’s delegation powers amid accusations of “federal favouritism” in state polls.

As Bengal’s ballot boxes fill, this PIL emerges as a litmus test for institutional integrity, with the apex court poised to investigate whether Sharma’s shadow undermines the Republic’s democratic franchise.

PIL is filed through Advocate Sanchit Garg.