New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued notice to the Election Commission on a petition by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee challenging the ongoing Special Revision of Electoral Rolls (SIR) in the state. This is the first time that a sitting Chief Minister of a state has personally appeared before the Supreme Court and presented his arguments.
A bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul M Pancholi also issued notice to the Election Commission on a petition by the West Bengal government on issues related to SIR and has fixed the next hearing of the matter for Monday. The CJI said, “Issue notices on both the petitions. During the hearing, learned Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said that there is another petition in which the affidavit filed by the Election Commission will have some bearing on this case. That case should also be taken up on Monday. We will hear it on Monday.”
Banerjee told the bench, “Please protect the rights of the people. We are grateful (to you).” She complained that the Election Commission is not accepting domicile certificates during the SIR exercise.
The bench asked the Election Commission to be careful while sending notices to voters on the basis of mismatch of names. The court, referring to the notice issued by the Election Commission to Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, said, “Please send notices carefully. You cannot exclude eminent writers etc.”
Banerjee has alleged that the SIR exercise in West Bengal is being conducted in a hasty and biased manner. Earlier, they had written to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar complaining that the SIR process violates the provisions of the Representation of the People Act and its rules.