On the direction of the division bench of the Calcutta High Court in April this year, the West Bengal State Pharmacy Council (WB SPC) has re-started the election process which was stayed by a single bench of the apex court in February 2023 following a petition filed in the court by four candidates whose nominations were rejected by the council citing various reasons. Now, the council published the list of candidates after a thorough scrutiny of the nominations, in which, except one, all the other previously rejected nominations were included. The reason for the rejection of one nomination is non-renewal of registration in due course. However, six candidates who submitted nominations in 2022 have now withdrawn their candidatures. In the final list there are 28 candidates to contest for the six seats of the council. Khalid Kaiser, the government appointed observer for the state pharmacy council elections, told Pharmabiz that the council called all the 25 candidates whose nominations were rejected previously and heard their version, in his presence. He said he recorded the interviews with the candidates in video as he is taking his responsibility very seriously. He further said, the election will be conducted on the direction of the court. There is no need for further submission of nominations. The present council election is a continuation of the election process started in 2022, which was actually happening after a period of 15 years as the last election was held in 2007. In 2022, 35 registered pharmacists filed nominations to contest the election, but, while the scrutiny of the nomination papers were made, 25 nominations were rejected, and the council went on with 10 nominations to conduct the election. Out of the 25 candidates whose nominations were rejected, four candidates filed a petition before the single bench of the high court challenging the decision of the council.
Consequently, the single bench passed an order to include the four candidates into the list of contestants and directed the council to complete the election process without delay. But, the council, challenging the decision of the single bench, approached the division bench. One of the two judges in the division bench upheld the decision of the single bench, and further directed the WB SPC to reconsider the nominations of the other 21 candidates too. The bench also directed the council to conduct the election as early as possible. But the other judge stood in support of the pharmacy council’s arguments. However, since there were differences of opinion among the judges, the matter was referred to a third bench which passed an order in favour of the petitioners. Thus, the WB SPC had to accept all the previously rejected nominations to go with the election process. The final judgement of the court came on 16, April, 2024. In the wake of the court order, the council started continuation work of the election process and announced the election on November 6, this year. According to sources, the new election process will begin with postal ballots, starting from December 23, 2024 upto December 26, 2024. The last date for ballot submission is January 27, 2025. The counting of votes will start on January 30, 2025, and the results will be declared on February 4, 2025. The council published the electoral roll which contains 28,000 registered pharmacists as voters. All over West Bengal, the number of registered pharmacists is above 45,000. A pharmacist working in a government institution in Kolkata has alleged that the reasons cited by the WB SPC in 2022 for rejecting the nominations were illogical and were done deliberately to avoid certain pharmacists from contesting the election. He said the number of voters in the electoral roll published now is also less compared to the total number of registered pharmacists. Meanwhile, the pharmacist associations have started work to mobilize support for their candidates. The four major pharmacist associations in West Bengal, the Pharmacists Association of West Bengal (PAWB), the West Bengal Progressive Pharmacists Welfare Association (WBPPWA), the Progressive Chemist and Druggist Association (PCDA), and the Young Pharmacists Forum (YPF) have come under a common platform to contest the council election which is schedule in the months of December 2024 and January 2025. The association leaders informed Pharmabiz that they have formed an alliance, United Pharmacists Forum (UPF) to contest the election. Prof. Sanmoy Karmakar, a senior pharmacy professor at the Jadavpur University, Nita Mandal, a pharmacist working in the private sector, Surajit Barik, a student pharmacist, Rusha Poddar, a community pharmacist and owner of a medical store, Abhoy Kumar Maity, a retired pharmacist from a government hospital and Munshi Nure Jaman, an entrepreneur in the pharmaceutical business are the candidates of the UPF.
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