The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought the response of the Election Commission to a plea for extending to Tamil Nadu also the order passed in the case of Bengal to display in all panchayat and block offices the lists of all voters whose names had been excluded from the draft list in the special intensive revision (SIR) exercise.

A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi listed for urgent hearing on Thursday the plea of DMK leader R.S Bharati, who contended that about 1.72 cr electors in Tamil Nadu, who constituted nearly 88 per cent of the voters, had been excluded from the draft SIR rolls in the name of “logical discrepancies”.

The bench also indicated that it would hear next week Bengal’s plea to extend the SIR deadline in the state beyond February 7, as, according to senior advocate Kapil Sibal, the EC had not completed the exercise so far.

Sibal, who represented the DMK leader on Wednesday, told the court that the SIR deadline would conclude on January 30 and had to be extended as otherwise the exercise carried out by the EC would become a “fait accompli”.

The senior counsel said, besides extending the deadline for Tamil Nadu, the January 19 directions passed in the Bengal matter vis-à-vis “logical discrepancies” should be extended to Tamil Nadu also. Senior advocate Dama Sehshadhri Naidu, who appeared for the EC, said the matter could be heard on January 30 or February 2, but Sibal objected to the same, saying no purpose would be served if the matter was not heard before January 30.

“Once we have laid down some uniform guidelines for Bengal, there is no reason it cannot be applied in Tamil Nadu. So no order will be required,” the CJI orally remarked.

Justice Kant then said the plea would be heard on Thursday and asked the EC to be prepared with its response.

Sibal urged the court to take up the Bengal SIR matter on Monday, to which the bench said: “We have already issued comprehensive directions.

The senior counsel said that in terms of the last order, in Bengal, the EC had to conduct hearings for nine lakh voters every day whose names had been excluded from the electoral rolls. But the poll panel had so far heard only one lakh excluded voters, said Sibal. He wanted the SIR deadline in Bengal to be extended beyond February 7.

Senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, who represented the EC, said: “They (Bengal) want to keep moving applications and keep extending the deadline.”

The CJI then said: “We will not extend. It will be a mockery of the system.”

The judge added that the matter relating to Bengal could be heard on Tuesday or Wednesday.

On January 19, questioning the EC’s rationale of scrutinising an estimated 1.25 crore voters credentials in Bengal based on “logical discrepancies”, the top court had directed the poll panel to display in all panchayat and block offices throughout the state the names and identities of such electors and that later shall respond to the same within 10 days thereafter.