The Supreme Court on Thursday issued a slew of measures to ease the severe workload and coercive pressures faced by Booth Level Officers (BLOs) deployed for the Election Commission of India’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
The Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi noted that statutory obligations under the Representation of the People Act, 1950, and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, must not be carried out in a manner that compromises human dignity or inflicts disproportionate hardship on field-level staff.
The Apex Court passed the order on an application filed by the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), highlighting multiple instances of BLOs allegedly committing suicide after being served notices under Section 32 of the RP Act.
The petitioner alleged that the provision, which criminalised willful refusal to perform electoral duties, had been invoked rigidly and without proportional safeguards. It noted that BLOs, mostly drawn from the cadre of Anganwadi workers, school teachers and other grassroots officials, have reported extended working hours, the threat of penal consequences, and, in extreme cases, psychological distress linked to SIR-related duties.
The plea further drew the attention of the Court to First Information Reports (FIRs) lodged against BLOs in Uttar Pradesh and to cases where workers were denied exemptions even in compelling personal circumstances.
The Counsel appearing for the ECI disputed the maintainability of the plea and maintained that the SIR was being conducted within the statutory framework.
The Bench, however, noted that the state governments, which depute personnel to the ECI, continue to bear a constitutional obligation to ensure humane working conditions. Excessive use of coercive statutory measures cannot be reconciled with constitutional protections under Articles 14 and 21, drawing implicitly from precedents such as Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India and Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation, both of which reinforce the requirement of fairness and non-arbitrariness in administrative action, it added.
The Apex Court directed the states to augment the manpower deployed for the SIR so that the daily workload on BLOs could be substantially reduced. It further ordered the state authorities to examine individual exemption requests arising from medical conditions, family exigencies or comparable circumstances, and to ensure the timely replacement of such personnel where necessary.
Any worker who continued to face unresolved grievances may seek appropriate relief directly from the Apex Court, it assured.
The matter forms part of a broader set of petitions challenging the legality, procedural safeguards, and data integrity of the SIR process being conducted in the states of Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, and Kerala.
The petitioners have argued that the SIR, originally conceived as an exceptional corrective measure, has been expanded to an unprecedented scale without adequate safeguards, posing risks of disenfranchisement and administrative opacity.
Earlier, the top court of the country sought data regarding the availability of machine-readable electoral databases and the safeguards adopted by the ECI to prevent arbitrary deletions, in line with the principles articulated in PUCL v. Union of India on transparency in electoral administration.
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