‘How dare you question judicial officers?’: SC raps Bengal SIR pleas, orders appellate tribunals for voter list appeals

Responding to submissions flagging the pendency of claims before judicial officers, a bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi observed that the application appeared premature.

“As if you don’t have trust. How did you dare such applications are filed? No one should dare question the judicial officers. As a Chief Justice of India, I will not tolerate this,” the bench said, as quoted by Bar and Bench.

However, the court directed Sujoy Paul, Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court, to constitute an appellate bench of former High Court Chief Justices and former High Court judges to hear appeals against deletions in the final voter list. The number of judges in the special bench will be decided by Justice Paul, the court said.

During the hearing, senior advocate Menaka Guruswamy raised concerns that only seven lakh claims had been decided while around 57 lakh were still pending. In response, CJI Kant said the Calcutta High Court had informed the court that nearly 10 lakh claims had already been disposed of.

The issue arose amid questions over whether elections could be announced before the SIR process is completed, with judicial officers currently verifying nearly 60 lakh adjudicated cases.

In an extraordinary order earlier, the Supreme Court had tasked judicial officers from West Bengal, Odisha and Jharkhand with adjudicating claims and objections related to the revision process.

The move came amid a prolonged standoff between the Election Commission of India and the state government, which had stalled the voter roll clean-up exercise.

The court said judicial officers would examine claims and objections arising from discrepancies identified during the revision process, noting that the exercise had reached an impasse.