Will need a dedicated bench for West Bengal SIR matters, says CJI

NEW DELHI: Trinamool Congress on Monday raised fresh objections against alleged mass enrolment of new voters in Bengal, forcing an already exasperated Supreme Court bench led by CJI Surya Kant to sarcastically observe that he would have to create a dedicated special bench to deal with the volume of pleas relating to SIR and elections.TMC MP and senior advocate, Menaka Guruswamy, told a bench of CJI Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi that EC, through Form 6, has enrolled five to six lakh new voters despite such an exercise being frowned upon by the court earlier. Form 6 is submitted by people, on attaining the age of 18 years, for the inclusion of their names in voters’ lists.

TMC had also been repeatedly questioning the SIR of electoral rolls and the large-scale deletion of voters owing to ‘logical discrepancy’, a ground unique to Bengal for deleting names of voters.

The bench said it cannot entertain an oral request from Guruswamy and if the client had grievances against such alleged enrolment, it could file a fresh plea stating the cause of action and grounds for grievance. “We cannot be entertaining an oral request without any documents before us.”Guruswamy said she did not have any document, but media reports suggested five to six lakh new voters have been included in the voters’ lists. During an earlier hearing, SC had said that it was not unusual that bulk Form 6 applications are submitted by those who attain 18 years of age to get their names included in the voters lists ahead of elections.EC had said all eligible people are allowed to apply for inclusion in the voters list till the deadline for filing of nominations by candidates. It had said all newly added voters may not be able to cast their votes in the forthcoming elections.