New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued a strong warning against any attempt to question the integrity of the judicial officers monitoring the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal. It declared that such actions will not be tolerated and faith in the judiciary must be maintained.The warning was given by a bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi while hearing petitions related to the ongoing review process.
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CJI Kant told the applicants, “Your application is premature, and shows that you do not have confidence. How dare you file such applications? No one should dare to question judicial officers. As the Chief Justice of India, I will not tolerate this.”The Court took strong exception to certain applications marking the pendency of claims before the judicial authorities appointed to examine voter inclusion and deletion requests. Reiterating the need to maintain faith in the judiciary, CJI Kant said that the apex court will not allow the officers performing judicial work under its instructions to be weakened in any way.To address potential grievances, the Supreme Court directed that Calcutta High Court Chief Justice Sujoy Paul may constitute a special bench. This would involve current or former judges hearing appeals against decisions made during the SIR process.CJI Kant said, “We leave it to the Chief Justice (of the High Court) to decide how many judges there will be in the appellate bench.”The bench further directed that the Election Commission will bear all the costs associated with the appellate mechanism and the judicial officers engaged in the exercise.“The Chief Justice of the High Court is requested to fix the honorarium payable to former judges or sitting judges, and all costs shall be borne by the Election Commission of India. Similarly, honorarium for the service of former judicial officers shall also be fixed, especially when 200 such officers are from neighboring states,” the order said.Judicial officers from West Bengal, Odisha and Jharkhand have been appointed to conduct the SIR following the Supreme Court’s previous observation of “lack of trust” between the ECI and the West Bengal government.On February 20, the Court had directed deployment of serving and retired district judges to ensure smooth execution of the revision.During Tuesday’s hearing, senior advocate Maneka Guruswamy informed the bench that around seven lakh claims have been adjudicated, 63 lakh are under adjudication, and around 57 lakh are still pending.In response, CJI Kant expressed confidence in the work of the officers. He remarked, “We knew that when judicial officers are appointed you people will run away. The Chief Justice of the High Court has told us that 10 lakh claims have been decided.”Emphasizing the seriousness of the findings of judicial officers, CJI Kant said, “If a judicial officer prima facie finds that you are not entitled to vote, you shall not vote.”The Court directed the ECI to issue a notification announcing the formation of an appellate body to handle voter list disputes.
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