'Wouldn't it be ideal to approach Supreme Court?': High Court on Kerala's plea to defer SIR

KOCHI: In the backdrop of the local body elections, the High Court asked the state government, wouldn’t it be more appropriate to raise the demand to postpone the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in the Supreme Court? Justice VG Arun said that any intervention at this stage would affect the SIR and that the process should also be completed in a time-bound manner. An order will be issued on the petition today.

The government's petition pointed out that deploying officials for both missions simultaneously would cause administrative gridlock. However, the Central Election Commission and the State Election Commission opposed it.

Advocate General K Gopalakrishna Kurup argued that although the electoral roll revision is being carried out in 12 states, Kerala faces a unique situation of local body elections colliding with SIR. 1,76,000 officials and 68,000 security personnel have been deployed for the election process. Another 25,668 officials have been deployed for the updating of the electoral roll. Double this number will be required in the next phase. This will affect the day-to-day functioning of the government.

It is a constitutional obligation to complete the election process by December 20. The AG also said that the SIR is not of an urgent nature.

The High Court said that although the High Court has jurisdiction, it would be inappropriate to control the election activities.

The Central Election Commission alleged that the petition is part of the Kerala government's game plan to block the SIR. Many states have approached the Supreme Court with such demands. If postponed now, it will be blocked again because the assembly elections are imminent. Currently, the election process and the SIR are progressing smoothly. The Central and State Commissions are moving in coordination. The process of delivering enumeration forms to homes has been 55 percent completed in 10 days. If necessary, officials can be released for the elections. The Commission also clarified that the draft list should be published on February 7.