New Delhi: In a relief for Mamata Banerjee, the Supreme Court on Friday turned down the pleas of CPI(M) and BJP seeking cancellation of elections on over 20,000 uncontested local body seats in West Bengal.

All these uncontested seats were won unopposed by candidates of the ruling Trinamool Congress and opposition parties had alleged that their candidates were obstructed from filing nomination papers.

However, taking note of allegations, the court allowed those obstructed from filing nomination papers to challenge polls by filing election petitions.

A bench comprising Chief Justice DIpak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud exercised its extraordinary power under Article 142 of the Constitution and held that the limitation period of 30 days for filing the election petitions, which has expired, would now commence fromState Election Commission (WBSEC) as to whether it conducted any probe into the fact that a large number of seats in the local body elections in the state went uncontested.

The poll panel had argued that 33 per cent of nearly 50,000 panchayat seats going uncontested in the state was not "an alarming situation"

The panel had said that it cannot persuade political parties to field candidates and, moreover, it took prompt actions when it received complaints about panchayat elections and even held re-polls.

During the previous hearings, the apex court had expressed shock at the fact that "thousands and thousands" of seats in the recent West Bengal panchayat polls had remained uncontested, observing that these figures showed that grass root-level democracy was not working.

The West Bengal government had said that