Supreme Court SIR Hearing Highlights: SIR happened smoothly everywhere except West Bengal: CJI

To this senior advocate Kalyan Banerjee responded that other than West Bengal, logical discrepancy have not been applied to any other state.

At the outset senior advocate Shyam Divan appearing for Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee suggested freezing of electoral rolls seven days prior to the polling date so that no eligible elector is left out. Divan also suggested requesting the High Court to ensure that the tribunals directed to be constituted by the top court function with immediate effect so that the electors found ineligible may exercise the right to appeal and the tribunal may have time to dispose of the appeal before polling.

He had also prayed for directions to add the electors found eligible by the tribunals to be added to the supplementary voter list. Divan further sought directions to expedite the disposal of appeals of all candidates of all political parties who are under adjudication.

Responding to this, the CJI said that most of these issues involve administrative exercise and can be taken up with the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court.

The court also highlighted the workload on judicial officers tasked with adjudicating the claims and objections to the electoral rolls.

“More than two lakh objections are being decided by judicial officers. They have not taken a single leave,” the court said. After hearing the matter briefly, the court posted the case for further hearing on April 1.

Previous hearing: During the last hearing on March 11, the Supreme Court asked the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court to request few former CJs and two-three judges of the high court, preferably Calcutta or neighbouring states, to hear the appeal of those persons whose claim for inclusion has been rejected by the Judicial officers. The top court directed the ECI to issue a notification in consultation with CJ of Calcutta HC notifying the former CJ/judges as the appellate tribunal.

“The CJ of Calcutta may request some former CJ and two-three judges of the high court, preferably Calcutta or neighbouring states who shall be notified as the appellate tribunal. The ECI shall issue a notification in consultation with CJ of Calcutta HC notifying the former CJ/judges as the appellate tribunal,” CJI had said.

Earlier the top court had allowed the deployment of judicial officers from Odisha and Jharkhand for completing the adjudication of claims and objections of persons included in the “logical discrepancy/unmapped category”.

A bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi had said that the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court can depute civil judges, if needed.