The Calcutta Excessive Courtroom has directed the Election Fee of India (ECI) to file its response inside 10 days in reference to a public curiosity litigation (PIL) associated to the Statewide Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal.

A division bench comprising Justice Sujoy Pal and Justice Partha Sarathi Sen handed the order, asking the Fee to submit its reply earlier than the subsequent listening to scheduled for November 19.

The petitioner has urged the court docket to make use of the 2025 electoral roll as the bottom checklist for the continuing SIR as a substitute of the 2002 checklist. The PIL additionally raised issues that Sales space Stage Officers (BLOs) are dealing with threats through the revision train and cited experiences of a number of voter suicides. It additional claimed that the bottom state of affairs in West Bengal is considerably completely different from that of Bihar, the place related workouts have been carried out.

In response, the Election Fee’s counsel knowledgeable the court docket that the continuing course of adheres to the rules issued by the Supreme Courtroom in reference to the SIR matter presently into consideration by the apex court docket.

The court docket’s route got here days after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee led a massive rally in Kolkata in opposition to the continuing electoral roll revision. The Trinamool Congress has alleged that the SIR is a type of “silent, invisible rigging” by the BJP-led central authorities in collusion with the Election Fee.

Addressing the rally, Banerjee accused the BJP of making an attempt to exclude real voters and unfold concern amongst unorganised sector staff. “Many unorganised sector staff are pondering whether or not their names can be eliminated. Speaking in Bangla doesn’t imply Bangladeshi, similar to talking in Hindi or Punjabi doesn’t imply Pakistani,” she mentioned.

She added, “Whoever is speaking in Bangla is branded as Bangladeshi. These idiots who haven’t fought the liberty battle — the place was BJP at the moment? That’s the reason they don’t know that India, Bangladesh and Pakistan had been a part of the identical land earlier than independence.”

– Ends