KOLKATA: The Calcutta High Court (HC) on Saturday cancelled leaves of all district judges, additional district judges across the state and judges of the CBI special court till 9 March. Judges who are on leave have also been asked to join work, according to a notification issued by the Registrar (Judicial Service).
According to sources, the leaves of district judges, additional district judges and CBI special court judges have been cancelled after the SC directives to solve the issues related to the ‘logical discrepancies’ before the decisive post-SIR rolls in the state are released.
The decision to cancel leaves of the judges was taken in the meeting today so that the judicial process in connection with ongoing cases against MPs and MLAs, POCSO cases and other serious matters are not affected.
No judicial officers can take leaves besides on emergency health grounds, according to sources. They have also been asked not leave stations till March 9.
The apex court on Friday cited the “trust deficit” between the ECI and the West Bengal government to direct that serving and retired judicial officers be deployed to decide issues relating to “logical discrepancies” before the final post-SIR rolls are released.
These past and present district judges and additional district judges will perform the role of Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) in examining the claims and objections related to the SIR. Their decision will be final and deemed to be orders “passed by this court”, a three-judge bench of the Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul M. Pancholi the SC said.
The bench passed the “extraordinary order” in the current “extraordinary circumstances” by using its plenary and “extraordinary” powers under Article 142.
It allowed the poll panel to publish the electoral rolls on February 28, as scheduled, and follow it up with a supplementary list of the names added to it after scrutiny.
The top court warned that the director-general of police (DGP) “will face serious consequence(s)” if there are any further law-and-order problems during the SIR exercise.
It asked the state CS, DGP and the advocate-general to meet the Chief Justice of the HC on Saturday morning and decide on the steps to implement the directions.
Both Trinamool and the BJP claimed victory, with Bengal’s ruling party saying the court order had exposed the poll panel’s failures and its main rival arguing that the state government’s disruptiveness now stood unmasked.