No one should dare question judicial officers: Supreme Court on Bengal SIR plea

While reviewing Bengal's SIR exercise, the Supreme Court warned against questioning judicial officers and set up retired HC judges as appellate tribunals.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday delivered a stern warning against attempts to question judicial officers overseeing the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in West Bengal, saying “no one should dare question” them while also reviewing the massive exercise underway across the state.

Hearing pleas related to the ongoing revision process, a bench comprising Chief Justice Suryakant and Justices R Mahadevan and Joymalya Bagchi expressed strong displeasure at an application that appeared to cast doubts on the functioning of judicial officers tasked with deciding claims and objections.

“Your application is premature and it shows as if you don’t have trust. No one should dare question the judicial officers,” the Chief Justice told counsel during the hearing.

When senior advocate Menaka Guruswamy clarified that the applicants were not questioning the officers themselves, the bench remained firm. “You may have not. But there are questions. As a Chief Justice of India I will not tolerate this,” the Chief Justice said.

The court was reviewing the progress of the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in West Bengal, a process that has already seen lakhs of claims being processed within a short period.

A report submitted on March 10 by the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court informed the bench that more than 10.6 lakh applications had been disposed of in the past two weeks alone.