'No Option Left': Top Court's "Extraordinary" Order In Bengal SIR Case

The Supreme Court today told the Calcutta High Court to appoint judicial officers for helping West Bengal in carrying out the special intensive revision (SIR) exercise, noting an unfortunate blame game has been going on between the state government and the Election Commission over the voter roll clean-up drive.

The judicial officers can look into claims and objections, the Supreme Court said.

"There is an unfortunate scenario of allegations and counter allegations which shows trust deficit between two constitutional functionaries... that is the state government and the Election Commission. Now, the process is stuck at the stage of claims and objections of the people who have been included in the discrepancy list," Chief Justice of India Surya Kant said.

The Supreme Court told the high court to free up serving and even former judicial officers in the rank of district judge for SIR work. It said it had to pass an "extraordinary order" due to "extraordinary circumstances".

To work out the finer details of the judicial officers' plan, the Supreme Court directed the State Election Commissioner, chief secretary, police chief, and other top officers to hold a meeting with the high court chief justice tomorrow.

"The state is obligated to provide Group A officers to perform the duty of SDO, SDM. There is a dispute among the party about the rank of the officials provided by the state government to perform the function of ERO and AERO. It is nearly impossible for this court to determine the status and rank of officials now deployed by the ECI given by the state," the Supreme Court said.

"In order to ensure fairness in adjudication of genuineness of documents submitted and consequent inclusion or exclusion in voter list... We are left with hardly any other option but to request the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court to spare some serving judicial officers along with some former judicial officers in the rank of ADJ or district judges, who can then in each district help in disposing or revisiting the claims under the logical discrepancy list," the Supreme Court said.

Strong Remarks

"A situation is being created where judicial officers have to intervene... We were expecting cooperation by the state. Is this the level of communication from the state? For the February 9 order, you responded on February 17. You are saying the state government is examining the officers. Examining, how? You should have written that 8,500 officers are sent. We are not microobservers. We are disappointed to see this. We thought states would cooperate. We don't want private explanations," Chief Justice Kant said.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had brought the SIR battle to the national capital earlier this month. After meeting the top three Election Commission officials, she gave an open threat: "I can get lakhs of people to Delhi to parade before the Election Commission."

EC sources had alleged she kept making false allegations and even "beat her hand on the table" despite the top three Election Commission officials showing restraint and being polite to her.

With all major parties including the ruling BJP at the Centre campaigning hard for the Bengal assembly election, Banerjee has been raising allegations against the Election Commission of misusing the voter roll clean-up exercise special intensive revision (SIR) to exclude genuine voters.

To make her case, she asked the EC why it did not conduct the SIR exercise in BJP-ruled Assam, which has historically seen tension and conflict over the issue of illegal immigration and demographic change. She alleged Bengal and Kerala have been unfairly targeted by the poll body, which she described as "BJP's agent".