Supreme Court says 'logical discrepancy' in Bengal SIR 'interim measure'

Kolkata, Oct. 28 -- The Supreme Court's clarification on Wednesday that it had permitted the Logical Discrepancy (LD) category in Bengal's electoral roll revision only as an interim arrangement, without ruling on its legality, has prompted Mamata All India Trinamool Congress (MAITC) MP Mahua Moitra to question whether the state's electorate was treated as "guinea pigs".

A bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana made the observations on Wednesday while hearing petitions challenging the inclusion of voters under the LD category in Delhi's Special Intensive Revision (SIR).

Justice Bagchi clarified that the court's Bihar SIR judgment could not be treated as an endorsement of the category, as it was not used in Bihar. He said the court had not finally adjudicated on its legality and questioned how entries of voters included in the 2003 electoral roll could be reopened under the category. The court would examine whether identifying patterns of discrepancies reflected the application of human judgment, he said.

Petitioners' counsel Prashant Bhushan submitted that 19.34 lakh voters in Delhi had been marked under the category and alleged that the ECI had not defined what constituted a logical discrepancy. ECI counsel Dama Seshadri Naidu submitted that 95 per cent of those affected had been restored.

MAITC MP Abhishek Banerjee, in a post on X, termed the situation "a convenient democracy" and argued that if the mandate was manipulated, the legitimacy of the state government was in question. He said the SC should restore the previous elected government and direct fresh elections within six months, ensuring that every eligible voter wrongfully excluded from the electoral rolls was reinstated.

Reacting on X, Moitra questioned how the category could be permitted as an interim measure if its legality remained uncertain. She claimed that 92 lakh people in Bengal had been marked as LD, of whom 27 lakh were denied the right to vote.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.