NEW DELHI: As almost 1.4 crore West Bengal voters face “logical discrepancy” notices requiring submission of documentary proof for the special intensive revision (SIR), Supreme Court ordered the Election Commission on Monday to display the list of such people in panchayat and block offices and gave them 10 more days to furnish documents to establish their credentials for inclusion in the state electoral rolls.Given the size of work and incidence of violence against EC officials conducting the drive in West Bengal, a bench of CJI Surya Kant and Justices Dipankar Datta and Joymalya Bagchi asked the state to provide manpower as required by EC and directed the DGP to ensure maintenance of law and order for smooth conduct of the exercise.Having two judges from West Bengal on the bench helped the court understand peculiarities associated with the state and appreciate arguments of senior advocate Kalyan Banerjee, who complained that EC is not accepting state board examination admit cards, in which only the date of birth of a person is recorded, as a documentary proof for age.Justice Datta said since the state education board does not record the date of birth in the certificate issued after passing the examination, EC must consider the admit card as documentary proof. EC counsel Rakesh Dwivedi said the commission would take necessary corrective steps.The bench did not agree with Dwivedi when he said that instances where age gap between the voter and his father is 15 years or less, or more than 50 years, and also less than 40 years between grandchildren and grandparents, should be categorised under “logical discrepancy”. The bench said, “We are not in a country where there is no child marriage.”A host of senior advocates — Kapil Sibal, Shyam Divan and Banerjee — appearing for Trinamool Congress politicians complained that EC was adopting absurd criteria for issuing notices citing “logical discrepancy”.Dwivedi said notices are issued to produce relevant documents so that the discrepancies are corrected.
