While the Election Commission of India has formally extended the schedule for the ongoing special intensive revision, or SIR, of electoral rolls in five states and Union Territories, the process schedule in Kerala remains unchanged for now, and now the Supreme Court has stepped in to direct the poll body to grant a separate extension in the absence of an official Election Commission order.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court asked the Election Commission to extend the deadline for filing claims and objections in Kerala, preferably by two weeks, even as the Commission issued an order extending the SIR schedule in Goa, Lakshadweep, Rajasthan, Puducherry and West Bengal up to January 19.
Electors in the five states and Union Territories covered by the Election Commission’s notice can now file claims and objections until January 19, as the revised schedule has already come into effect following requests from the respective Chief Electoral Officers and after considering other administrative factors.
Kerala, however, was not included in the extension order issued by the poll body, and the last date for voters in the state to submit objections continues to be January 22, pending a fresh notification from the Election Commission in compliance with the Supreme Court’s direction.
The Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, with Justice Joymalya Bagchi also on the bench, heard petitions highlighting the deletion of nearly 24 lakh names from Kerala’s draft electoral roll, and noted that the non-publication of the list of excluded voters had led to confusion among residents attempting to verify their status.
The court directed the Election Commission to publicly display the names of voters removed from the draft roll at gram panchayat offices or other public offices in villages and to upload the list on the official website, while also indicating that the difficulties faced by voters warranted an extension of time. As of now, the names of voters whose names could not be mapped to their father or mother, is not published in the website, but only provided to the Booth Level Officers (BLO) from whom the voters get the information.
Meanwhile, the Election Commission rejected a proposal to include Madhyamik Class 10 examination admit cards issued by the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education as a permissible document for SIR verification, despite their widespread use in the state as an initial proof of identity.
The Commission clarified that documents accepted for SIR hearings include identity cards of government employees or pensioners, documents issued before 1987 by banks, post offices or LIC, birth certificates, passports, residential certificates, caste certificates, family registers maintained by local authorities and government-issued land or housing allotment certificates.