Class 10 admit card not enough to verify parentage in SIR: SC

NEw new delhi: The sublime margaret court on wed issued an of import clarification in the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) process in West Bengal by directing that the Class 10 Madhyamik admit cards will not be a standalone document for mapping parentage with the 2002 rolls but will have to be submitted along with the Class 10 pass certificate.The clarification was made by a bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant on an urgent mention made by the Election Commission of India (ECI).The bench, also comprising justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi said, “In the order of February 24, paragraph 3(iii) is further clarified to the effect that Madhyamik Class 10 admit card may be submitted along with Madhyamik pass certificate for the purpose of verifying date of birth and parentage of voters.”In its February 24 order, the court permitted the chief justice of Calcutta high court to requisition judicial officers from neighbouring states of Jharkhand and Odisha, in addition to the 250 serving and retired district judges/additional district judges from West Bengal, to adjudicate nearly 5 million claims and objections of unmapped voters classified as “logical discrepancy”.Senior advocate Dama Sesadari Naidu appearing for the EC informed the court that the order gave an impression that the admit card can be a “standalone” document. He said that at best the admit card can “supplement” the pass certificate and not “supplant” it.The bench said, “Judicial officers in West Bengal know that the Madhyamik admit card bears an important place for unmapped voters as it bears the father’s name. Unlike pass certificates in Bihar having date of birth, in West Bengal, to connect an unmapped category voter with mapped details (in 2002 roll), the Madhyamik admit card will be vital. We are only saying the pass certificate should be supplemented with admit card.”The court further clarified that the documents uploaded as per its February 24 order should be submitted by the electoral registration officers (ERO) or assistant EROs to the presiding judicial officer adjudicating the claims in each district by 5pm on Thursday.The court had on Tuesday said that all documents submitted till February 14 (last date for submission of documents in support of claims) either physically or electronically should be forwarded to the judicial officer. However, it did not specify any timeline for doing so. The court issued the clarification considering the need to expeditiously decide the claims during the SIR process.The court had permitted EC to publish its final roll on February 28 and exercised its extraordinary power under Article 142 of the Constitution of India to accord all supplementary lists published after this date to be “deemed” as having been published on February 28.The court had on February 20 permitted judicial officers in West Bengal to be deployed for adjudicating claims of nearly 8 million voters remaining out of 13.6 million persons issued notices under logical discrepancy category. This was done as an “extraordinary” measure considering the “trust deficit” between the state and ECI.The logical discrepancy includes voters who were mapped to more than six progeny; age gaps under 15 years with parents; individuals aged over 45 missing from the 2002 rolls; mismatches in fathers’ names between the 2002 and 2005 lists; age gaps under 40 years with grandparents; age gaps over 50 years with parents; and gender mismatches with the 2002 list.