CJI says a dedicated bench will be needed to handle West Bengal SIR matters

New Delhi: Trinamool Congress Fresh objections were raised to Bengal’s massive new voter registration on Monday, forcing an already angry Supreme Court bench led by CJI Surya Kant to sarcastically note that he must set up a dedicated special bench to handle the flood of requests related to SIRs and elections.TMC MP and senior advocate Menaka Guruswamy told CJI Justice Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi that the EC has recruited 50,000 to 600,000 new voters through Form 6, even though the court had earlier disapproved of the practice. Form 6 is submitted by persons aged 18 and above to have their names included in the electoral roll.

The TMC has also repeatedly questioned the SIR of the electoral roll and the large-scale deletion of voters due to “logical discrepancies”, which is a unique reason for deletion of voters’ names in Bengal.

The bench said it could not accept Guruswamy’s oral plea that if the customer was aggrieved by this alleged registration, it could file a fresh plea stating the cause of action and grounds of dissatisfaction. “We cannot accept a verbal request without any documentation in front of us.”Guruswamy said she did not have any documents, but media reports said five to six lakh new voters had been included in the electoral rolls. In an earlier hearing, the SC had said that it is not uncommon for people above 18 years of age to submit bulk Form 6 applications to get their names included in the voters’ list ahead of elections.The Electoral Commission said that before the deadline for candidates to submit nominations, all eligible persons can apply to be included in the electoral list. It has said that any additional voters may not be able to vote in the upcoming election.