The Supreme Court Monday sought the Election Commission of India (ECI)’s response to pleas by Trinamool Congress leaders alleging procedural irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal.
A bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi gave ECI a week’s time to respond to the applications by TMC MPs Derek O’Brien and Dola Sen.
Appearing for O’Brien, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal said, “Very weird procedures are being followed in West Bengal. Some WhatsApp messages are being sent… on the basis of that, the authorities are acting without written orders.” He added that the Commission has also introduced a “logical discrepancy” category of voters, who may have to be heard over errors or anomalies in voter details.
Though the Commission sought two weeks’ time to respond, Sibal opposed this, saying January 15 is the last date for filing claims and objections.
O’Brien’s application contends that ECI is issuing instructions to booth level officers (BLOs) and others through informal channels, such as WhatsApp, thereby making it impossible to establish an audit trail.
As regards the logical discrepancy category, the plea said that alleged mismatches or anomalies in voter details, including spelling variations, inconsistencies in parental or age information, and other data irregularities identified by system-generated algorithms, are being used as grounds for summoning voters for quasi-judicial hearings.
Sen’s plea argues that the SIR orders are arbitrary and unconstitutional, and will lead to invalid deletion of genuine voters.
