The Supreme Court on Friday cited the “trust deficit” between the Election Commission and the 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. Their decision will be final and deemed to be orders “passed by this court”, a three-judge bench said.

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 Bengal chief secretary, DGP and the advocate-general to meet the chief justice of Calcutta High Court on Saturday morning and decide on the steps to implement the directions.

The bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul M. Pancholi said it was passing the “extraordinary order” in the current “extraordinary circumstances” by using its plenary and “extraordinary” powers under Article 142.

Both Trinamool and the BJP claimed victory, 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.

The bench passed the directions following mutual recriminations between a battery of senior lawyers — Kapil Sibal, Shyam Divan, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Kalyan Banerjee, Gopal Sankaranarayanan and Menaka Guruswamy representing the Bengal government its instrumentalities, and senior advocate Dama Sheshadri Naidu appearing for the poll commission.

Naidu alleged that despite the apex court’s February 9 directions, incendiary speeches and threats were being directed at commission officials carrying out the SIR, with the police failing to act on complaints.

He said the state government had not complied with the court directive on the appointment of Group B officers as EROs and assistant EROs.

Sibal, Singhvi and Divan disputed these claims. Divan argued that the state had deputed a sufficient number of its personnel for deployment as EROs and AEROs, but the poll panel had chosen to “appoint a new species of officers called ‘special roll officers’”.

“These special roll officers are scrutinising the files cleared by the EROs. The special roll officers cannot trump over the EROs,” he said.

“How can they on a wholesale basis reject and trump what the EROs have done when the statutory rules say that the determination by the EROs is final?”

With each side continuing to challenge the other’s claims, Justice Kant said the court had two options: induct officers from other states for SIR duty in Bengal, or secure the services of local judicial officers.

The court observed that most of those served with “logical discrepancies” notices had submitted their documents, and their claims needed to be decided through a quasi-judicial process by the EROs.

“…There is an unfortunate blame game of allegations and counter-allegations which shows trust deficit between two constitutional bodies namely the democratically elected state government and the Election Commission of India,” the bench said in a written order.

“In order to ensure fairness in the adjudication of the genuineness of the documents and consequential inclusion/ exclusion in voters lists and as agreed to by both sides, we are left with hardly any other option but to request the Hon’ble Chief Justice of the High Court of Calcutta to spare serving judicial officer(s) along with some former judicial officers in the ranks of additional district judge or district judge who can then be requested to revisit/ dispose of the pending claims under the category of ‘logical discrepancies’.

“Each such judicial officer/ former judicial officer shall be assisted by micro-observers from the ECI and officers from the state government who have already been deployed for such duties….”

All district magistrates and superintendents of police will be “under deemed deputation” to ensure compliance with any directions from the EROs, issued under the overall supervision of the high court chief justice, the apex court said.

Since deputing serving judicial officers on electoral duty can affect pending court cases, the top court requested the high court chief justice to shift any urgent matters to alternative courts as an interim measure.

On February 9, the top court had extended beyond February 14 the process of the scrutiny of names relating to the SIR in Bengal.

It had directed the DGP to file a personal affidavit in response to allegations by the poll panel and an NGO about violence, intimidation of electoral officials, and the police’s failure to register FIRs.