Kolkata, Feb 22 Judicial officers appointed to adjudicate claims and objections arising from the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in poll-bound West Bengal will be required to accept only the 13 identity documents specified by the Election Commission of India (ECI) for verification of voters identified under the “logical discrepancy” category, officials said on Sunday.
The decision was conveyed during a meeting held in Kolkata between judicial officers assigned to adjudication duties and representatives of the Election Commission of India, where detailed procedural guidelines were explained.
The “logical discrepancy” category includes cases in which anomalies were detected in family-tree data during the process of progeny mapping, prompting authorities to summon the concerned voters to hearings and require them to furnish any one of the 13 documents listed by the ECI as valid identity proof to establish their eligibility for retention in the electoral rolls.
The clarification assumes significance amid objections raised by the ruling Trinamool Congress, which had questioned the restriction to the 13 specified documents and sought consideration of additional identity proofs issued by various state government agencies.
Officials said that as per the current schedule, the final electoral roll in West Bengal will be published on February 28, excluding those cases that have been referred for judicial adjudication. Supplementary electoral rolls will be published subsequently after the adjudication process is completed.
Full-scale adjudication hearings are scheduled to begin from Monday, with the involvement of approximately 150 session judges appointed for the purpose by the Calcutta High Court.
In total, around 250 judicial officers have been assigned to the adjudication process, which will be supervised at the district level by three-member committees constituted under the direction of the Calcutta High Court.
Each district-level supervisory committee will comprise the district judge, the district magistrate -- who also serves as the district electoral officer -- and the district superintendent of police concerned.
Of the 250 judicial officers involved, around 100 are judges currently presiding over courts under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, while the remaining are session judges from other courts.
Meanwhile, the Calcutta High Court on Saturday issued a notification cancelling the leave of all judicial officers in West Bengal until March 9 and directed those currently on leave to report back to duty by Monday. The order excluded judicial officers on emergency medical leave.
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