The Supreme Court has given an important clarity regarding the Special Intensive Review (SIR) going on in West Bengal. The court has made it clear that during the scrutiny of documents, the admit card of class 10 board exam will be seen only as a supporting document. Along with this, it is necessary to attach the certificate of the board.
The bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi has given this clarification on the doubts raised by senior advocate DS Naidu appearing for the Election Commission. Naidu said that the court in its previous order had allowed the use of Aadhar card and Madhyamik board admit card as identity documents. There is confusion regarding this because the Election Commission recognizes only the 10th certificate as a document.
Naidu asked the court whether the admit card alone could be accepted as an identity document. On this, Justice Bagchi said, ‘We allowed the production of the admit card also because it contains information like date of birth and father’s name. This information is not contained in the certificate issued by the secondary board, but still the admit card cannot be seen as an independent identity proof.
During the hearing, senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for the petitioner, said, ‘Persons who have not appeared for the examination can also have the admit card, hence, it should be considered as an independent document of identity.’ But the court made it clear that the use of the admit card will be valid only when it is presented along with the certificate of the board.
At the end of the hearing, the court asked the Election Commission to make all the documents available to the judicial authorities by 5 pm on Thursday, 26 February. Keep in mind that the Supreme Court has engaged lower court judges in this work to bring speed and impartiality in the work of SIR. Now the court has said that all the documents including the Secondary Board Admit Card submitted till 14th February should be given to these judicial officers.
