Kolkata, February 24 Both the Trinamool Congress and the BJP hailed the Supreme Court's order on Tuesday, allowing the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court to deploy judicial officers from neighboring Jharkhand and Odisha to deal with claims and objections in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal.
The TMC blamed the Election Commission's "arrogant attitude" for this situation, while the BJP accused the TMC of deliberately plotting to stall the SIR by delaying the process from the outset.
Describing the SC order as another resounding victory for "Bengal's Maa-Mati-Manush" in the Supreme Court, the TMC said in a post on X, "the EC's arrogant control over the Bengal SIR process has been decisively broken."
The TMC claimed that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee "demanded and fought tooth and nail" to protect people's right to vote, and "the SC has now taken control, stripping the ECI of its unchecked discretion."
The TMC said, "The apex court has authorized the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court to depute additional officers of the rank of Civil Judges with at least three years' experience. If that's still not enough, the CJ can also call upon serving or retired judicial officers of equivalent rank from the High Courts of Jharkhand and Odisha. The ECI is so discredited, so incompetent, so distrusted that the Supreme Court is forced to import judges from other states to complete what was supposed to be their sacred constitutional job."
"And the final, searing blow is that the apex court has upheld that all documents listed in the ECI's October 24 notification, and those subsequently cleared by the SC, including Aadhaar cards and Madhyamik admit cards, must be accepted as valid proof. There will be no more arbitrary rejection of documents," the TMC said.
"There will be no more selective humiliation of Bengal's voters. The ECI's desperate attempt to manipulate the rolls by changing documentary standards mid-game has been crushed by the courts," it said.
Blaming TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee and other party officials directly, BJP state President Samik Bhattacharya said that the SC order that judicial officers from two other neighboring states should also be deployed in the SIR exercise means that "the highest court in the country has no faith in the Bengal administration."
"It is a matter of shame that the apex court can also realize that there is a total politicization in the Bengal administration under the reign of Mamata Banerjee. The inclusion of judicial officers from other states in the SIR process in Bengal does not bring dignity and glory to our state, and the TMC is solely responsible for that," he said.
Bhattacharya said, "The deliberate slowing down of the process by some of the state government officials entrusted with the SIR exercise and not recruiting enough data entry operators to conduct the process has brought the situation to this pass, prompting the apex court to issue the order."
A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi took note of a letter by the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court that said that 250 district judges deployed in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise will take around 80 days to deal with the claims and objections.
Taking note of the grim situation and the time constraints, the bench permitted the deployment of civil judges to conduct the process.
It asked the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court to request his counterparts from Jharkhand and Odisha and requisition judicial officers of similar ranks to deal with the situation.
The apex court allowed the EC to publish the final electoral roll on February 28, and clarified that the poll panel can issue supplementary lists as the verification process proceeds.