Bengal SIR: 730 judicial officers to examine cases

Kolkata: A total of 730 judicial officers, including 200 newly appointed officers, will undertake work on the "adjudication-marked cases" as part of the SIR exercise. These 200 officers are in addition to the 530 already appointed from the state. Meanwhile, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee will sit on a dharna in Kolkata on March 6, Trinamool national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee announced on Sunday.

The appointment of these 200 additional judicial officers was decided at a high-level meeting on Saturday evening between the additional CEO with the Calcutta High Court, among others. West Bengal CEO's office, in a statement on Saturday, said, "60.06 lakh doubtful and pending cases are marked 'under adjudication' in the rolls as on date." Names approved by the judicial officers will be added in supplementary lists later. There are 6.44 crore electors in West Bengal.

Mamata Banerjee will sit on a dharna at the Metro Channel in Kolkata on March 6 -- the same spot where she had undertaken her Singur dharna for 17 days before coming to power in 2011.


"CM will announce her next course of protest from there," said Abhishek Banerjee, who slammed ECI over SIR for putting majority of the population in Muslim-dominated Malda and Murshidabad in the 'under adjudication' category.

"The minorities and SCs/STs are targeted and 42% of the names are under adjudication in Malda's constituencies. A large number of voters in Murshidabad and North 24 Parganas are also under adjudication," Abhishek said.

Claiming that ECI has violated Supreme Court guidelines, he said, "Our chief minister has filed and fought the case for the people of Bengal. However, ECI did not discuss the SOP with the state government during the adjudication of cases for judicial officers. BJP wants to do 'vote chori' and we have caught it."

"The benchmark of 1.25 crore was set by BJP and that is the target that has been met by ECI. The people of Bengal, who have been put 'under adjudication' category will oust the central government in the coming days," he said.