Deploy additional staff: Supreme Court issues directions to address concerns of BLOs engaged in SIR
The Supreme Court on Thursday issued a slew of directions to alleviate the issues faced by Booth Level Officers (BLOs) engaged in the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in various States.
A Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi ordered the concerned States to depute additional staff for SIR duty to reduce working hours of persons engaged in SIR.
Further, if they seek exemption from work citing specific reasons, the same should be considered on a case to case basis, the Bench made it clear.
It issued the following directions towards that end:
- State to depute additional staff so that working hours can be reduced.
- Wherever any individual has a specific reasons for seeking exemption, the State government shall consider such requests on case to case basis and replace such person with another person. State is obligated to provide the work force in case there is a need to increase the same.
- If any other relief not dealt with, with the aggrieved individual can approach the court.
The directions were passed while hearing an application filed by political party Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) against the Election Commission of India (ECI) highlighting the condition of BLOs including the suicide of some of them who had cited work pressure before taking the extreme step.
"We have details from 35 to 40 BLOs who have committed suicide. These are all Anganwadi workers and teachers. Section 32 ROPA notices are being sent to them saying that they will be imprisoned for 2 years if they don't meet deadlines. 50 FIRs have been filed against BLOs in UP. They (Election Commission of India) are taking pride in this. There was a boy who wanted to attend his wedding. He was denied and he committed suicide. This is a human story," Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan said on behalf of TVK.
Senior Advocate Maninder Singh, appearing for ECI, opposed the application.
"This is absolutely unfair. These applications should not be entertained," he said.
The Court then noted the following regarding the application.
"TVK seeks measures from the ECI for BLOs who are experiencing extreme measures. Applicant is espousing the cause of such employees who due to health reasons, family circumstances and other individual circumstances are unable to perform the duties assigned by the Election Commission of India. It is also highlighted that where employees are reluctant to perform their duties, the ECI is filing criminal action against them. There can be indeed no quarrel that employees deputed by SEC at the disposal of ECI for the performance of statutory duty including SIR. In case they are facing issues the state govt can obviate such hardship," the Court recorded in its order.
It eventually proceeded to issue directions to the States to alleviate the working conditions of BLOs.
The hearing was part of the slew of petitions challenging the SIR process in various States including Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Kerala.
TVK was represented by Senior Advocate Gopal Sankarnarayanan and advocates Dixita Gohil, Pranjal Agarwal and Yash S Vijay.