TMC, BJP hail SC order on SIR

The Trinamool Congress and BJP both hailed the Supreme Court’s Tuesday order allowing the Calcutta High Court Chief Justice to deploy judicial officers from neighbouring Jharkhand and Odisha to deal with claims and objections in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal.

The TMC blamed the Election Commission’s “arrogant attitude” for such a situation, while the BJP accused TMC of deliberately plotting to stall SIR by delaying the process from the outset.

Describing the SC order as another resounding victory for “Bengal’s Maa-Mati-Manush” in the Supreme Court, the TMC said in a post on X handle, “the EC’s arrogant stranglehold on Bengal’s SIR process has been decisively snapped.”

The TMC claimed Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee “demanded and fought for tooth and nail” to safeguard people’s rights to cast a vote, and “the SC has now taken the reins, stripping the ECI of its unchecked discretion.”

The TMC said, “The apex court has authorised the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court to deputise additional officers of the rank of Civil Judges with at least three years’ experience.”

If that’s still not enough, the CJ can pull serving or retired judicial officers of equivalent rank from the High Courts of Jharkhand and Odisha. The ECI is so discredited, so incompetent, so distrusted that the Supreme Court is forced to import judges from other states to finish what was supposed to be their sacred constitutional job."

"And the final, searing slap is that the apex court has upheld that all documents listed in the ECI’s October 24 notification, and those subsequently cleared by the SC, including Aadhaar cards and Madhyamik admit cards, must be accepted as valid proof. No more arbitrary rejection games, the TMC said.

No more selective humiliation of Bengal’s voters. The ECI’s desperate bid to rig the rolls by changing documentary standards mid-game has been crushed under judicial boots," it said.

Squarely blaming TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee and other party functionaries, BJP state President Samik Bhattacharya said the order of the SC that the judicial officers from two other neighbouring states should also be deployed in the SIR exercise means the "highest court in the country has no faith in the Bengal administration."

"It is a matter of shame that the apex court can also realise there is a total politicisation in Bengal administration under the reign of Mamata Banerjee. The inclusion of judicial officers from other states in the SIR process in Bengal does not bring dignity and glory to our state, and the TMC is solely responsible for that," he said.

Bhattacharya said, "The deliberate slowing down of the process by some of the state government officials entrusted with the SIR exercise and not recruiting enough data entry operators to conduct the process has brought the situation to such a pass, prompting the apex court to issue the order.

A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi took note of a letter by the Calcutta High Court chief justice that said 250 district judges deployed in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise will take around 80 days to deal with the claims and objections.

Taking note of the grim situation and the time constraints, the bench permitted the deployment of civil judges to conduct the process.

It asked the Calcutta High Court chief justice to request his Jharkhand and Odisha counterparts and requisition judicial officers of similar ranks to deal with the situation.

The apex court allowed the EC to publish the final electoral roll-on February 28, and clarified that the poll panel can issue supplementary lists as the verification process proceeds.