NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Tuesday told ‘Association for Democratic Reforms’ to argue within legal confines while challenging the validity of SIR of voter lists across states and without reciting snide remarks of political parties, after its counsel Prashant Bhushan referred to EC as a ‘despot’.A charged up Bhushan reeled off a set of accusations — SIR is an unprecedented exercise for de novo preparation of voter lists which is impermissible under Representation of the People Act; and an unholy hurry to complete the exercise within a short period has put BLOs under “immense mental and physical strain leading to 30 of them committing suicide”.“A lot of people see EC as a despot as it does not care for the statutory provisions, rules and regulations, and whimsically carries out whatever it feels to be appropriate,” Bhushan said.A bench of CJI Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi immediately cautioned Bhushan not to deviate from his legal pleadings. “There is no point in making sweeping remarks against EC relying on snide remarks made by political parties (opposed to SIR). Confine your arguments to the legal issues (raised in your petition) to challenge the validity of SIR,” the bench said.Bhushan said SIR was a ruse for EC’s game plan to verify citizenship of residents in constituencies across country. He said citizenship is determined by a competent authority under ministry of home affairs and that EC has no role in this exercise.Earlier in the day, advocate Ashwini Kumar Uadhyay had alleged there were repeated instances of assault and use of criminal force to intimidate BLOs engaged in SIR work in Bengal and other states, and sought a direction from SC to allow EC to requisition the armed forces and state police for preparation of a correct voter list. The bench said, “EC and authorities are competent to take appropriate steps in this regard.”Advocate Vrinda Grover mirrored advocate A M Singhvi, who appeared for Congress general secretary K C Venugopal, TMC MP Mahua Moitra and other petitioners, that SIR was unconstitutional as EC is conducting it following a process which is neither prescribed under RP Act nor in the conduct of election rules.
