EC eases Bengal SIR rules: E-sign for tribunal judges, can upload bulk orders on portal

EC eases SIR tribunal procedures in Bengal, allowing bulk order uploads, draft saving and additional documents, while planning digital signature-based login for judges NEW DELHI: Having updated the appellate tribunal portal for Bengal around two weeks back to enable judges to rely on documents beyond the 13 listed in SIR order, Election Commission will, within this week, also replace Aadhaar-authenticated e-sign with digital signature certificate as a mandatory requirement for judges to login and upload their orders.According to sources in EC, two more requests from SIR tribunal judges have been accepted and operationalised. The appellate tribunals platform now enables them to upload their orders in bulk, rather than one at a time. This is expected to save effort and time, given that a large number of orders passed by the tribunals in over a month were not uploaded due to the judges' reservations about Aadhaar authentication screen introduced in Sept this year.ECINET portal would also allow judges to save their orders as drafts, enabling them to make changes before issuing the final order.Sources told TOI EC had, nearly two weeks back, tweaked its dedicated portal for the tribunals, adding a 14th category to the list of eligible documents, namely "any other document". This now allows the judges' office to upload a document that the judge, based on their discretion, deems apt to determine a person's eligibility to be included in the electoral roll; even the electoral registration officer or the elector can upload this document on the portal, as per sources. All SIR orders issued by EC thus far specifically state that the list of 13 documents is 'only indicative'. "DSC-based access for tribunal judges is likely to be cleared before end of this week, with the pen-drive containing the digital signatures under process," shared an EC officer.TOI has further learnt that EC has already instructed Bengal CEO to work on the tribunal judges' demand for relocation of their offices to a more "convenient and central" location. Bharti Jain is senior editor with The Times of India, New Delhi. She has been writing on security matters since 1996. Having covered the Union home ministry, security agencies, Election Commission and the ‘prime’ political beat, the Congress, for The Economic Times all these years, she moved to TOI in August 2012. Her repertoire of news stories delves into the whole gamut of issues related to terrorism and internal strife, besides probing strategic affairs in India’s neighbourhood.