"Why Apprehensive": Top Court Raps Tamil Nadu On SIR, Gives Notice To Poll Body

An exasperated Supreme Court questioned today why the critics of the voter roll revision exercise are so "apprehensive" about it. "You people are portraying like this is the first time in country that electoral rolls are being revised," said Justice Surya Kant, one of the two judges hearing a multitude of petitions against the exercise. 

This time, the bench was hearing a petition from Bengal filed by Trinamool Congress MP Dola Sen. She is among the many who have challenged the constitutional validity of the Special Intensive Revision or SIR of electoral rolls in poll-bound West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.

"Why are you all so apprehensive about SIR exercise? The ECI will provide answer to your queries," said Justice Kant. 

His comment was made in response to the remarks by Kapil Sibal, who, appearing on behalf of Tamil Nadu's ruling DMK, said the SIR exercise was being undertaken "in a tearing hurry, unlike before, when it used to take three years to revise electoral rolls".

"Lakhs of forms cannot be digitised before publication. This is ultimately going to be a farcical exercise," Sibal said. "It cannot happen in one month. Bengal is much worse. There is no connectivity. There is no 5G no 4G... This is not an adversarial exercise. But what we see down the road - it is like that. We are giving suggestions," he added.  

"The situation in different states is different," Sibal told the court, explaining the states' concerns. 

"This monsoon season in Tamil Nadu there would be a lot of rain, that might not be in other states. It's always heavy during November and December. It is not uniform across the country. The BLOs, etc., will have to manage flood relief as well. December and January are harvest season too in Tamil Nadu, and that time is not conducive. Christmas vacations will also be declared. There might be minimum participation in the enumeration process," Sibal said, agreeing that the situation might be different in other states. 

The court ordered Tamil Nadu to file a counter-affidavit. "We are issuing notice. If we are satisfied, we will annul the exercise.  We are issuing notice in all the writ petitions," the judges said.