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NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court of India has permitted the Calcutta High Court to deploy additional judicial officers, including from Jharkhand and Odisha, to expedite scrutiny of voter inclusion claims in West Bengal’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.The court took note of the Calcutta HC Chief Justice’s assessment that despite assigning 294 serving and retired district and additional district judges to examine documents of voters placed under logical discrepancy and unmapped categories, it would take 80 days to scrutinise about 50 lakh cases. Accepting this, the bench allowed engagement of civil judges with three years’ experience and directed that expenses for requisitioned judicial officers be borne by the Election Commission of India (EC), according to TOI sources.The bench also allowed the EC to publish the final voter list containing verified names on February 28 and said the remaining names could be issued through supplementary lists. Using its powers under Article 142, it declared that these supplementary lists would be deemed to be part of the final voter list published on that date.In an unprecedented decision, the Supreme Court last week used its “extraordinary powers” to deploy judicial officers in West Bengal to decide claims for inclusion in voter list and speed up the completion of Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. TThe court emphasised that CM Mamata Banerjee should be aware of the consequences if the revision exercise is not concluded. The court explained that the unprecedented judicial intervention under Article 142 of the Constitution was necessitated by the “extraordinary situation” that has arisen in Bengal due to trust deficit and non-cooperation between EC and the Bengal govt.The bench also did not agree with the contention of the state govt that electoral registration officers (EROs), and not the judicial officers, should have the final say in deciding claims of inclusion in the voter list.
