Kolkata: On Monday, the Supreme Court reiterated that all 13 documents specified by the EC and the Madhyamik admit card “shall be considered by the EROs when passing orders on the objections received in response to the notices served”.But the scamper and confusion over the right set of documents, which dogged most of the SIR hearings in Bengal that started on Dec 27, was evident even on Tuesday.The hearings will wind up in 4 more days on Feb 14, with 1.4 crore of the 1.5 crore people who received notices already attending it till Tuesday.Twenty-four hours after the order was pronounced by the SC, hardly any change was found at hearing centres, where electors rued that the AEROs and EROs asked them for 1 or 2 more documents even after they showed another EC-specified document.Shyamal Roy, a state govt employee, turned up at Survey Building for a hearing to mitigate a logical discrepancy and was surprised to see that no change happened on the ground. “Earlier, I accompanied my wife for a hearing, and she toiled to find all documents. I was called for a hearing today as my name appeared as Shyam. Going by the 14-document list on the hearing notice, I first produced my ID card issued by the state govt. But officials told me that was not enough and asked for my matriculation certificate,” said the Tollygunge resident.The future of several “genuine voters”—who could not produce any of the 13 documents listed for SIR and instead gave other documents like Aadhaar, PAN card, voter card, or driving licence to sort out logical discrepancies during hearings — now hangs in the balance, according to BLOs. They stated they were forbidden to upload anything other than the 14 documents listed by the EC for SIR now.A BLO said, “I have some electors who don’t have any document other than voter, Aadhaar, and PAN cards. They are genuine voters. They attended hearing with the documents and the EROs did not tell them anything. I was asked by the ERO not to upload those documents that don’t feature on the list of the EC’s 14 documents.” An AERO said, “Documents are being checked to verify authenticity of voters as per EC norms. We are carrying out the hearing in keeping with the instructions of the EC.“
