The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a petition filed by actor-turned-politician Vijay’s party, Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), challenging the Election Commission of India’s decision to carry out a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Tamil Nadu.
A bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant, sitting with Justice Joymalya Bagchi, said the matter will be taken up on December 4 along with other pending petitions concerning the state. The direction came after senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for TVK, raised concerns over the pressure faced by Anganwadi workers and school teachers appointed as Booth Level Officers (BLOs) for the revision exercise.
He told the court that BLOs were being issued notices under Section 32 of the Representation of the People Act if they failed to meet enumeration targets. The provision allows imprisonment of up to three months.
According to him, “they may lose their jobs and go to jail,” and there have been reports of 21 suicides among BLOs attributed to work pressure. He added that the Election Commission has already extended the last date for filing the SIR enumeration forms from December 4 to December 11.
The court also took note of a separate plea by the Communist Party of India questioning the SIR process in Kerala, which will be heard on Tuesday. On December 2, the bench is scheduled to hear petitions including one by the Kerala government seeking postponement of the SIR exercise due to local body elections.
The bench further issued notice on a plea filed by refugees from Bangladesh settled in West Bengal, who fear disenfranchisement due to delays in getting citizenship certificates under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019.
Senior advocate Karuna Nandy, appearing for the petitioner NGO Atmadeep, submitted that Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain and Christian refugees who entered India before 2014 have not yet received citizenship despite applying under the CAA framework. They are seeking provisional inclusion in the electoral roll during the SIR.
“Even though we came prior to 2014, our applications have not been processed,” she said.
The court, however, remarked that citizenship issues must be decided individually. “Our problem is that we cannot distinguish only because somebody is Jain or somebody is Hindu,” CJI Surya Kant observed, posting the matter to December 9 along with other West Bengal-related petitions.
On November 26, the Supreme Court sought the Election Commission’s response on a batch of petitions from political leaders, activists and NGOs challenging the SIR in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and other states.
The bench has already laid out a schedule:
- December 2 – Kerala SIR matters
- December 4 – Tamil Nadu SIR matters
- December 9 – West Bengal SIR matters
While beginning its final hearing, the court had noted that the argument that SIR has never been undertaken before cannot by itself invalidate the Election Commission’s directions. It also underlined that the poll panel has the “inherent power to determine correctness of entry in Form 6.”
