West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had alleged that the SIR process was only for deletion, not for inclusion.
SC Hearing on West Bengal SIR Updates: The Supreme Court Friday asked the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court to appoint judicial officers for deciding claims, objections in the ongoing SIR exercise in the state of West Bengal. This comes after the court noted an unfortunate blame game and trust deficit between the state government and the election commission of India.
“In order to ensure fairness in the adjudication of the genuineness of documents relied upon and consequential determination of inclusion or exclusion in the voter list and as agreed to by both sides, we are left hardly any option but to request the CJ of high court at Calcutta to spare some serving judicial officers along with former judicial officers at the rank of additional or district judges who can then in each district be requested to revisit/dispose of claims under the category of logical discrepancy,” the court ordered.
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What happened in the previous hearing? On February 9, the top court directed that at least one week more beyond 14 Feb shall be granted to the EROs/AEROs for completing the scrutiny of documents and for taking an appropriate decision. The court further clarified that the responsibilities assigned or to be assigned to the micro-observers or state government officials shall be to only assist the EROs/AEROs in the decision making process. The court had also directed the DGP of the state to file a personal affidavit in response to the ECI allegations of failure to act on alleged unlawful activities.
On February 4 the apex court while issuing notice in the matter asked the state of West Bengal to provide a list of Group B officers that it could spare for the SIR process. Arguing personally before the Supreme Court, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee had said that Bengal was being “targeted” by the Election Commission and SIR was meant to “bulldoze” the people of Bengal. She alleged that the SIR process was only for deletion, not for inclusion.
On January 19, the Supreme Court had passed a slew of directions to ECI for transparent verification of persons in logical discrepancy list on pleas by Trinamool Congress leaders alleging procedural irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal.
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