February 21 (TSP Bangla) – The Supreme Court of India on Friday cited a “trust deficit” between the Election Commission of India and the West Bengal government while issuing directions on the ongoing SIR exercise.
A three-judge bench ordered that serving and retired judicial officers be deployed to deal with issues related to “logical discrepancies” before the final post-SIR electoral rolls are published. These former and current district judges and additional district judges will act as electoral registration officers (EROs) to examine claims and objections. The bench said their decisions would be final and would be treated as orders passed by the court.
The court allowed the poll panel to publish the electoral rolls on February 28 as scheduled, followed by a supplementary list of names added after scrutiny.
It also warned that the state’s director-general of police could face serious consequences if there were further law-and-order problems during the SIR exercise. The court asked the Bengal chief secretary, the DGP and the advocate-general to meet the chief justice of the Calcutta High Court on Saturday morning to decide how the directions would be implemented.
The bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul M. Pancholi said it was issuing an “extraordinary order” in “extraordinary circumstances”, invoking its plenary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution.
Both the All India Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party claimed victory after the order. The ruling party in Bengal said the court’s directions had exposed failures on the part of the poll panel, while the BJP argued that the state government’s conduct had been laid bare.
The bench issued the directions after sharp exchanges between senior lawyers representing the state government and the poll panel. Among those appearing were Kapil Sibal, Shyam Divan, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Kalyan Banerjee, Gopal Sankaranarayanan and Menaka Guruswamy for the Bengal government and its agencies, while senior advocate Dama Sheshadri Naidu appeared for the poll body.
Naidu alleged that despite the apex court’s February 9 directions, commission officials involved in the SIR exercise were facing incendiary speeches and threats, and that the police had failed to act on complaints. He also claimed that the state government had not complied with the court’s directive on appointing Group B officers as EROs and assistant EROs.
Sibal, Singhvi and Divan disputed these allegations. Divan told the court that the state had deputed enough personnel for deployment as EROs and AEROs, but the poll panel had instead chosen to appoint what he described as a new category of officers called “special roll officers.”
“These special roll officers are scrutinising the files cleared by the EROs. The special roll officers cannot trump over the EROs,” he said.
“How can they on a wholesale basis reject and trump what the EROs have done when the statutory rules say that the determination by the EROs is final?”
With both sides continuing to contest each other’s claims, Justice Surya Kant said the court had two options: either bring in officers from other states to handle the SIR exercise in West Bengal or use the services of local judicial officers.
The Supreme Court of India also observed that most of those who had received notices over “logical discrepancies” had already submitted their documents. Their claims, the bench said, now needed to be examined and decided through a quasi-judicial process by the electoral registration officers (EROs).
“…There is an unfortunate blame game of allegations and counter-allegations which shows trust deficit between two constitutional bodies namely the democratically elected state government and the Election Commission of India,” the bench said in a written order.
“In order to ensure fairness in the adjudication of the genuineness of the documents and consequential inclusion/ exclusion in voters lists and as agreed to by both sides, we are left with hardly any other option but to request the Hon’ble Chief Justice of the High Court of Calcutta to spare serving judicial officer(s) along with some former judicial officers in the ranks of additional district judge or district judge who can then be requested to revisit/ dispose of the pending claims under the category of ‘logical discrepancies’.
“Each such judicial officer/ former judicial officer shall be assisted by micro-observers from the ECI and officers from the state government who have already been deployed for such duties….”
The Supreme Court of India said all district magistrates and superintendents of police would be placed under “deemed deputation” to ensure compliance with directions issued by the electoral registration officers (EROs). These directions, the court said, would be carried out under the overall supervision of the chief justice of the Calcutta High Court.
The apex court noted that deputing serving judicial officers for electoral duty could affect the hearing of pending cases. It therefore requested the high court chief justice to transfer urgent matters to other courts as an interim arrangement.
Earlier, on February 9, the court had extended the deadline for scrutiny of names related to the SIR exercise in West Bengal beyond February 14.
The court had also directed the state’s director-general of police to file a personal affidavit responding to allegations made by the Election Commission of India and an NGO. The allegations included violence, intimidation of electoral officials and the police’s failure to register FIRs.
