The Supreme Court today directed that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal must continue without any hindrance, while extending the deadline for scrutiny of documents by one week. A Bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant, along with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M. Pancholi, emphasised that the Court would intervene only on procedural matters if necessary, but stressed that no disruption of the SIR process would be tolerated.
The Court also ordered the state government to submit, by 5 p.m. tomorrow, the names of 8,505 Group-B officers to the Electoral Registration Officers (EROs). From this list, the Election Commission will appoint micro-observers to assist EROs and Assistant EROs in correcting discrepancies in the electoral database.
State Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Kumar Agarwal confirmed that the final list cannot be released before the 21st of February, and is now scheduled for publication by the 28th of February. According to the CEO’s office, hearings have been completed for 13.9 million voters, while documents for 10.6 million voters have been uploaded. Efforts are underway to finalise the remaining work as quickly as possible.
