‘How dare you?’ CJI condemns petitioners for questioning integrity of judicial officers involved in West Bengal SIR matter

New Delhi: Supreme Court A stern warning was issued on Tuesday against any attempt to question the integrity of the judicial officer in charge of the Special Enhancement Revision (SIR) of the West Bengal electoral roll. It declared that such behavior would not be tolerated and that trust in the judiciary must be maintained.The warning was issued by a bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi while hearing a batch of petitions regarding the ongoing revision work.“Your application is premature and shows no trust on your part. How dare you file such an application? No one dares to question a judicial officer. As the Chief Justice of India, I will not tolerate such behavior,” CJI Kant told the applicants.Courts have made strong exceptions to certain petitions that indicate claims are pending before judicial officials assigned to review voter inclusion and expungement requests. CJI Kant reiterated the need to maintain faith in the judiciary, saying the Supreme Court would not allow any action that undermines officials discharging judicial functions under its directions.To address the underlying grievances, the Supreme Court directed Calcutta High Court Chief Justice Sujoy Paul to constitute a special bench. The committee will be composed of current or former judges and will hear appeals against decisions taken during the SIR proceedings.“We leave it to the chief justice (of the high court) to decide how many judges should be in the appellate bench,” CJI Kant said.The bench further directed that the Election Commission would bear all costs associated with the appeal mechanism and judicial officers involved in the exercise.The order read: “The Chief Justice of the High Court is requested to fix the gratuity to be paid to former judges or sitting judges and all expenses shall be borne by the Election Commission of India. Likewise, the gratuity of former judicial officers should be fixed, especially when 200 such officers are from neighboring countries.”Judicial officers from West Bengal, Odisha and Jharkhand have been deputed to implement the SIR after the Supreme Court earlier observed a “trust deficit” between the ECI and the West Bengal government.On February 20, the court had directed the deployment of serving and retired district judges to ensure smooth implementation of the amendments.At Tuesday’s hearing, senior advocate Menaka Guruswamy told the judge that around 700,000 claims had been adjudicated, 6.3 million were still being adjudicated and about 5.7 million were still awaiting trial.In this regard, CJI Kant expressed full confidence in the work of the officials. “We know you people run away when judicial officers are appointed. The Chief Justice of the High Court told us that one million claims have been adjudicated,” he said.Highlighting the seriousness of the judicial officer’s findings, CJI Kant added: “If the judicial officer prima facie believes that you do not have the right to vote, then you will not vote.”The court directed the ECI to issue a notification announcing the establishment of an appellate body to deal with electoral roll disputes.