New Delhi: While extending the deadline for preparation of final voter lists in West Bengal by a further seven days, the Supreme Court, on Monday, told the state government that it would not create any impediments to the completion of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
The Court assured that hurdles in the process would be addressed though.
“We will remove hurdles, but we will not create any impediments in the completion of SIR. Let us be very clear about it,” Chief Justice of India Surya Kant said during the hearing, as reported by News18.
Appearing for the Election Commission of India (ECI), senior advocate D S Naidu, flagged concerns over the appointment of Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), arguing th
at they perform quasi-judicial functions and must be adequately trained and qualified. He said only 64 officers with adjudicatory experience were appointed, while others were selected based on pay parity, despite SIR decisions being open to challenge in appellate forums.
The role of micro-observers was also discussed by the bench. Senior advocate Shyam Divan, appearing for the West Bengal government, argued that large-scale deletion of voter names could not be carried out through micro observers.
In response, the CJI noted that micro observers were part of a system created to assist EROs and AEROs, and that the final decision-making authority rested with the EROs. The court observed that if additional officers joined the process, the quality of decisions could improve.
Divan highlighted the urgency of the matter, pointing out that the SIR process is scheduled to conclude on February 14. He said the draft electoral list contains 7.08 crore voters, of which 6.75 crore are mapped, while around 32 lakh remain unmapped and 1.36 crore fall under the “logical discrepancy” category.
The court said it would continue hearing the matter.