‘Unfortunate blame game’: Supreme Court tells Calcutta HC to appoint judicial officers for Bengal SIR

In an unprecedented move, citing “extraordinary circumstances,” the Supreme Court of India on Friday told the Calcutta High Court to appoint judicial officers for helping West Bengal in carrying out the special intensive revision (SIR) exercise. The top court observed that an unfortunate blame game has been going on between the West Bengal government and the Election Commission over the voter roll revision drive. The judicial officers can look into claims and objections, theBench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipin Pancholi said.

“There is an unfortunate scenario of allegations and counter-allegations, which shows a 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.

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‘Had to pass an extraordinary order due to extraordinary circumstances’

The Supreme Court told the Calcutta High Court to free up some serving and even former judicial officers in the rank of district judge for SIR work. The top court said it had to pass an “extraordinary order” due to “extraordinary circumstances”.

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The Supreme Court also directed the State Election Commissioner, chief secretary, police chief, and other top officers to hold a meeting with the high court chief justice on Saturday to work out the finer details of the plan.

“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.

‘Spare some serving judicial officers along with former judicial officers’

"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 court said.

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“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,” the CJI said.