The Supreme Court’s decision to depute judicial officers to oversee voter claims in West Bengal marks a watershed moment in Indian electoral jurisprudence. By intervening in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, the Court has signaled that “extraordinary circumstances” require solutions that bypass traditional administrative channels to safeguard the sanctity of the democratic process.
A three-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant noted the “trust deficit” and an “unfortunate blame game” between the elected state government and the Election Commission of India (ECI) and underlined the significance of completing the SIR exercise before the state elections a few months later.
The Core Conflict: “Logical Discrepancies”
At the heart of this intervention is the “logical discrepancy” category—a designation that has left thousands of voters in a state of flux. While the Election Commission typically manages these revisions through executive officers, allegations of procedural lapses and systemic bias in West Bengal prompted the Court to act. The decision to involve the judiciary directly suggests a lack of confidence in the local executive’s ability to remain neutral during high-stakes revisions.
“The circumstances being extraordinary, the request for entrustment to judicial officers or former judicial officers is also of an extraordinary nature,” the bench said, noting that it was important to ensure “fairness in adjudication of genuineness of documents” that would determine inclusion and exclusion of voters in the state’s electoral roll.
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