NEW DELHI: In a bid to calm the political slugfest over alleged suicides by BLOs due to heavy work pressure of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, Supreme Court on Thursday said those BLOs unwilling to do SIR work because of health or mental issues should be substituted with other govt employees by states concerned, reports Dhananjay Mahapatra.Dealing with a petition filed by a Tamil Nadu political party, TVK, alleging registration of cases against BLOs by EC when many have allegedly committed suicide due to workload, a bench of CJI Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi said, “The state govt concerned has provided employees to do the statutorily mandated work which is being carried out by EC.”The bench said, “Can the statutorily mandated work be stopped? The states concerned must ensure that they are not posting such employees who are pregnant or having other health issues for the SIR work.”It’s for the state to ensure that employees deputed as BLOs are fit to carry out the task: SCOn BLOs’ selection, Supreme Court said, “EC cannot find out which employee is fit for BLO work. It is for the state to ensure that the employees deputed as booth-level officers are fit to carry out the task.”“Once the state puts the employees at the disposal of EC, they are obliged to perform the work. They are not being sent to other states as it was done on many instances in the past. If any or some of the employees are facing difficulty in carrying out the SIR work, the state must replace them,” the bench said.The court issued two directions — one, the states concerned may depute additional workforce with EC to reduce the workload on BLOs; and, second, if any employee, for a specific reason, seeks exemption from SIR work, the competent authority of the state concerned shall consider such requests on case-to-case basis and replace such employee with another employee.The bench clarified that the state is bound to provide a substitute for every employee it exempts from SIR work. “The workforce of employees put at the disposal of EC as BLOs can be increased by the states but under no circumstance it can be reduced,” the court said.Appearing for EC, senior advocate Maninder Singh said the distribution of enumeration forms have been 96% complete in Tamil Nadu and 86% in Uttar Pradesh.TVK’s counsel G Sankaranarayanan told the court EC should not register FIRs against BLOs for not meeting the target or laxity. The bench said FIRs were registered in Noida alone in UP and another FIR by Bengal police against EC by the husband of a deceased BLO. “Were there any FIR registered in Tamil Nadu,” Justice Bagchi asked.The bench said, “It is not the first time that FIRs were registered by EC against BLOs. It was done earlier too. What else can EC do? The state govt employees are not under its control. At the same time, the statutorily mandated work must be completed. Let us hope the states provide additional workforce.”Senior advocate Kapil Sibal questioned the hurry to complete SIR, the time can be extendede without overburdening BLOs.For EC, senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi said the work is going on smoothly, but some political parties are politicising the incidents to create a narrative. “Every BLO is to sign and upload approximately 30 forms a day. Is this too much of a workload,” he asked.
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