On Friday, the Supreme Court accepted the petition of Kerala government to get a postponement of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll and next week, the case was taken into consideration. The court sent also notices to the Election Commission of India (ECI) and other parties concerning new petitions challenging the SIR process in Kerala, Uttar Pradesh and Puducherry.
Kerala sought immediate intervention on the grounds that the local body elections that were due on December 9 and 11 would be in conflict with the SIR exercise and this would cause an administrative hitch. Bench The bench consisting of Justices Surya Kant, SVN Bhatti and Joymalya Bagchi indicated that no other state had expressed such concerns. On behalf of Kerala, senior advocate Kapil Sibal demanded that urgent instructions were required since the election schedule was tight. He further added that SIR related issues of Tamil Nadu and West Bengal were already in the agenda of November 26 and 27.
The Supreme court explained that the plea of Kerala only needed urgent hearing and thus it was set to hear it on November 26. The petitions calling in Uttar Pradesh and Puducherry were adjourned to first or second week of December as urgent.
The Congress, Indian Union Muslim League, and CPI(M) political parties have also taken the SIR to task in three parts, and the court responded by issuing a notice on all the petitions. The bench commented, “Thank God, every political party has begun to come, as the interest on the subject is universal.
In their plea the Kerala government pointed out the real problems of carrying out the SIR and the local body elections together. It declared that the elections alone needed close to 1.76 lakh staff members as well as 68,000 security officers. The SIR exercise would require an extra 25,668 employees, which would be a huge burden on the state apparatus and would interrupt the normal administrative processes.
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