Bengal SIR: Former SC Justice Nariman on 90 lakh votes cut- 'Very worrisome...'

Former SC Justice Nariman has expressed concern over the deduction of 90 lakh votes during the SIR in West Bengal. He deeply regrets that even after the names of lakhs of voters were deleted, the Supreme Court did not stop the process SIR.

Justice Nariman said, "In the West Bengal elections, lakhs of voters have been deprived of the right to vote. This is a shocking figure. Despite the loss of the rights of 90 lakh voters, the Supreme Court has not taken any concrete steps to stop it.

These are very worrying things: Former Justice Nariman

He said, 'Out of those whose rights were taken away, about 22 lakh voters have appealed. The rest were probably those who did not have the necessary means to get justice and out of these 22 lakh voters, 93 per cent of the appeals of about 1 lakh voters came out of the verdicts in favour of the voters, so you can think that it was like completely illegally excluding the common man, that is, the citizen of India. So that the government can get what it wants, and in West Bengal, we saw that it removed the current government. It brought the central government to power. Now, these are very worrying things that are happening in our country today."

Justice Nariman was speaking at the Centenary Lecture on the Constitution and Common Man Subject. He criticized the law related to the selection of Election Commissioners in 2023. In this regard, he referred to the order of the Anoop Barnwal case, in which the Supreme Court had recommended an impartial selection committee consisting of the PM, the Leader of the Opposition and the CJI of India. Parliament had included a cabinet minister instead of the CJI. This re-established the dominance of the executive over the appointments. He said that he went back to where he started.

I hope that the Supreme Court, an institution that I have ever been a part of, will intervene immediately. It will fix these things. You can't have an Election Commission that either works properly or doesn't work properly.

demonstrations on SIR-EC revelations across the country
There have been continuous demonstrations across the country since the revelations on the SIR and the Election Commission. The entire opposition, including the Congress, is on the streets. There is a demand for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. A large number of people had arrived at the CJP's Mumbai protest. All are demanding the resignation of the CEC and the cancellation of the SIR process.

Recently it has been revealed that 2 Chief Election Commissioners had written letters 14 times objecting to the decision of the CEC, but there was no response. The Indian Express report claimed that some of the decisions were taken by Gyanesh Kumar, who was associated with the election system, alone. As soon as this matter came out, politics has heated up in the country on this issue since then.