TMC, BJP both claim victory as Supreme Court 'imports' judges for Bengal voter list
Kolkata: Both the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) claimed political victory on Tuesday after the Supreme Court authorised an unprecedented cross-state judicial intervention to rescue West Bengal’s fractured electoral roll revision process.
In a landmark directive, a bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi empowered the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court to requisition judicial officers from Jharkhand and Odisha. The move is designed to clear a massive backlog of claims and objections in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) after officials warned that the current 250 judges on the task would require 80 days to finish, far exceeding the constitutional deadline.
War of Words
The ruling triggered a fierce rhetorical exchange, with both parties interpreting the "importing" of outside judges as a vindication of their respective stances.
The ruling TMC characterised the order as a "resounding victory" for Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and a stinging rebuke of the Election Commission of India (ECI). "The EC's arrogant stranglehold on Bengal's SIR process has been decisively snapped," the party posted on X.
"The ECI is so discredited, so incompetent, so distrusted that the Supreme Court is forced to import judges from other states to finish what was supposed to be their sacred constitutional job," the TMC stated, adding that the court's insistence on accepting Aadhaar and Madhyamik cards as valid proof ended the ECI's "arbitrary rejection games."
The BJP countered that the necessity of bringing in officials from neighbouring states was a mark of "shame" for the state administration. State President Samik Bhattacharya argued the order proves 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 realise there is a total politicisation in Bengal administration under the reign of Mamata Banerjee," Bhattacharya said. He accused the state government of "deliberate slowing down of the process" by failing to hire enough data entry operators.
The Judicial Framework
The Supreme Court's "extraordinary" measures include:
- Civil Judge Deployment: Authorising the use of Civil Judges with at least three years of experience to assist District Judges.
- Inter-State Assistance: Allowing the Calcutta High Court to pull serving or retired judicial officers from the High Courts of Jharkhand and Odisha if local staffing remains insufficient.
- Rolling Publication: Permitting the ECI to publish the final electoral roll on Feb. 28, with the provision that supplementary lists be issued as the verification of "logical discrepancies" continues.
The court reiterated that documents previously cleared by the bench must be accepted as valid proof of identity, crushing what the TMC described as a "desperate bid to rig the rolls by changing documentary standards mid-game."
The final verification process now moves into a high-speed phase as the state prepares for crucial upcoming elections under the shadow of intense judicial scrutiny.
With inputs from PTI