New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Friday directed the appointment of either serving or former additional district judges as judicial officers to oversee the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bengal. The bench said the officers would be appointed by the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court, adding it was left with no other choice as it flagged a trust gap between the Bengal government and the Election Commission of India.
There is an unfortunate allegation/counter-allegation which clearly depicts a trust deficit between two constitutional functionaries – democratically elected state government and the ECI,” the bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and comprising Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi said during the hearing. The Supreme Court said that it was left with no other choice but to resort to this due to the “unfortunate blame game” between the two parties.
The Mamata Banerjee-led government objected to the ECI depending on micro-observers and special roll observers appointed by it. The bench said that the judicial officers would perform the function of the EROs. In order to ensure fairness in the adjudication of documents and consequential determination of inclusion/exclusion on the voter list, and as agreed to by both sides, we are left with hardly any other option but to request the CJI of Calcutta HC to spare some serving judicial officers along with some former judicial officers of integrity in the rank of additional district judge…who can then in each district revisit/dispose of pending claims under category of logical discrepancy.
Each such officer shall be assisted by micro-observers and officers of the state government who have already been deputed by the state for such duties. Circumstances being extraordinary, we are conscious of the fact that it may have some impact on the pending court cases.
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