Birth certificates before birth, children born weeks apart: Strange claims during SIR hearing

The ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) hearings of electoral rolls in West Bengal have thrown up a series of startling and, at times, baffling claims, prompting the Election Commission to order legal action in multiple cases and underlining the enormity of the task involved in cleaning up the voters’ list.

One of the most striking cases emerged from the Baranagar Assembly constituency, where scrutiny of documents revealed that a voter’s recorded date of birth was March 6, 1993, while the birth certificate submitted in support of the claim had been issued two days earlier, on March 4, 1993.
The apparent impossibility of a birth certificate being issued before birth left senior election officials astonished.

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After repeated verification, the Commission concluded that the information was false and directed the concerned Electoral Registration Officer to initiate legal proceedings.
Officials noted that the enumeration form clearly warned applicants that providing incorrect information would invite action under the Representation of the People Act.
The Commission has also decided that the voter’s name will be deleted from the final electoral roll of Baranagar.

Some of the most astonishing disclosures, however, came from documents examined during SIR hearings in the Metiabruz Assembly constituency.
Records from Booth No. 53 showed biologically implausible details relating to one family.
The documents indicated that a woman was shown as the mother of ten children, even though her name did not appear in the 2002 electoral roll.
While the first two children were recorded as being born four years apart, the data that followed raised serious red flags.

According to the commission officials, a woman submitted documents where it has been shown that she gave birth to two sons within a gap of just 26 days — one in early December 1990 and another on January 1, 1991 — a claim officials described as medically impossible.
Not only that the commission officials notice a peculiar pattern in the birth details of several children. According to the official, several children were born on January 1 across different years.

Two daughters were shown as being born exactly a year apart, both on January 1 in consecutive years, suggesting the repeated use of a default or fabricated date of birth.
Election officials also noted that while the father’s name appeared in slightly different forms across documents, all the enumeration forms carried the same booth number and identical serial numbers, further deepening doubts about the authenticity of the entries.
A similar instance of misleading information surfaced in Memari Assembly constituency in East Burdwan district.

During scrutiny of records from Part No. 55, it was found that a voter had left the date of birth incomplete, mentioning it only as “xx/xx/1987” in the enumeration form.

The Commission viewed this as deliberate concealment of information and issued written instructions to the Electoral Registration Officer to initiate legal action in this case as well.
Election Commission officials said such instances are not isolated.
According to senior sources, numerous voters have submitted incorrect, incomplete or questionable information, significantly delaying the verification process and causing considerable hardship for officials engaged in the exercise.
Despite severe time constraints, the Commission has continued detailed scrutiny in its effort to publish a transparent and credible voters’ list.

Senior officials described these findings as “bizarre” and said they highlight the scale of irregularities uncovered during SIR hearings across constituencies.
With multiple cases now being referred for legal action, the focus remains on whether the Commission can, amid mounting scrutiny and limited time, still succeed in publishing a voters’ list that is fully credible and transparent.