A Trinamool Congress councillor on Saturday protested at an SIR hearing centre in Bhowanipore after officials failed to provide receipts to voters submitting documents, despite a Supreme Court directive mandating the practice.

Ashim Bose, councillor of Ward 70 of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, reached the hearing centre at St John’s Diocesan Girls’ Higher Secondary School around noon and questioned officials over the absence of receipts.

“I asked them whether they thought they could defy even the Supreme Court. They had no answer,” Bose said on Saturday afternoon. “The officials kept saying they had no instructions from their seniors to issue receipts. I told them clearly that if receipts were not provided, I would not allow the hearing to proceed.”

Hearings for voters from 16 parts of the Bhowanipore Assembly constituency were underway at the centre. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee is Bhowanipore’s MLA.

Bose said he spoke to the electoral registration officer (ERO) of the constituency and reiterated that Supreme Court orders could not be ignored. “Finally, they agreed to note on the hearing notice the list of documents a voter submitted at the centre,” he said.

An ERO is responsible for overseeing the SIR and other election-related work in an Assembly constituency.

Saswati Das, the ERO of Bhowanipore, acknowledged that there had been a lapse but said it was corrected immediately. “There is a standing instruction from the Election Commission that all voters must be given receipts for documents they submit. This error may have occurred because some assistant electoral registration officers (AEROs) have joined recently,” Das told Metro.

In an order dated January 19, the Supreme Court had stated that “the official, who will receive the documents or accord a hearing to the affected persons, may also certify the receipt of documents and the conduct of such a hearing”. The order was issued while hearing a petition related to the ongoing SIR process in Bengal.

Voters across the city have, however, said procedures varied from centre to centre, with no uniform method being followed.

A voter who attended a hearing earlier this week at RN Singh Memorial High School in Kasba said officials there used printed sheets listing all required documents, ticking off those submitted. At another hearing centre near Moulali in central Calcutta, catering to voters from the Entally constituency, officials wrote the list of documents submitted on the hearing notice.

At the Bhowanipore SIR centre on Saturday, Bose was heard telling voters to insist on receipts for documents submitted.