New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a batch of pleas challenging the Election Commission of India's (ECI) decision to conduct Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in Kerala, Uttar Pradesh and other states, PTI reported.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant, SVN Bhatti and Joymalya Bagchi issued notice to the Election Commission on all the fresh petitions filed by different political leaders, challenging SIR exercises in different states on different grounds.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for a petitioner challenging the SIR exercise in Kerala, submitted that local body elections are also scheduled to be held in the state and, therefore, there is some urgency involved in the matter.
The bench directed that the pleas challenging the SIR exercise in Kerala will be listed on November 26, and the rest of the petitions challenging the electoral roll revision exercise in other states will be taken up for hearing in the first or second week of December.
The top court is already hearing a batch of pleas challenging the validity of the Election Commission's decision to conduct a pan-India SIR exercise.
On November 11, the top court sought separate responses of the poll panel on pleas filed by DMK, CPI(M), West Bengal Congress and Trinamool Congress leaders challenging the SIR of the electoral rolls in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, respectively.
Meanwhile, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee urged Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar to immediately halt SIR in her state and ‘thoroughly reassess the present methodology and timelines’, The Wire reported.
Banerjee, in her letter to the CEC, alleged that booth-level officers (BLOs) were not given ‘adequate training, support and time’ alongside accusing West Bengal’s chief electoral officer (CEO) of resorting to ‘intimidation’, thus threatening BLOs with disciplinary action and show-cause notices.