New Delhi, Feb 4 (PTI) Mamata Banerjee became the first serving chief minister to argue in the Supreme Court on Wednesday as she sought an intervention in the SIR (Special Intensive Revision) of electoral rolls, alleging that West Bengal was being "targeted" and its people were being "bulldozed".

The court took note of Banerjee's petition and said genuine persons must remain on electoral rolls.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi issued notices and sought replies to the petition by February 9 from the Election Commission and the chief electoral officer of West Bengal.

The CJI asked the poll panel to instruct booth-level officers and electoral roll officers to be more sensitive while issuing notices on grounds of minor discrepancies such as mismatched spelling of names, etc.

The chief minister referred to the poll panel as "WhatsApp Commission" in an apparent reference to directions being allegedly passed by the Election Commission to electoral officials through the instant messaging app.

Banerjee, dressed in her signature white sari paired with a black scarf to resist the Capital's winter, reached the Supreme Court premises flanked by her lawyers, including Trinamool Congress leader and senior advocate Kalyan Banerjee, around 10 am.

Several lawyers and litigants jostled to enter the CJI's courtroom to catch a glimpse of the CM making her arguments. At the outset, Banerjee sought permission to argue for five minutes. The CJI responded by saying the court would give her not five but 15 minutes to make her submission.

"The problem is our lawyers always fought our case from the beginning but when everything is finished, we are not getting justice... We are not getting justice anywhere. I am a bonded labourer, sir... I am from a common family and I am not fighting for my party," Banerjee said.

"West Bengal is being targeted," Banerjee alleged, questioning why the same yardstick was not applied to Assam.

"They are targeting West Bengal to bulldoze its people," said the chief minister, who was permitted by the bench to supplement the submissions of her lawyer and senior advocate Shyam Divan.

Alleging that the state was not getting justice anywhere, Banerjee said she wrote six letters to the Election Commission on the SIR issue but got no response.

At the end of the hearing, she conveyed her gratitude to the bench for the opportunity to argue in person and urged it to "save democracy".

Banerjee has challenged the SIR of electoral rolls in the state and sought a direction to the poll panel to "accept Aadhaar cards as proof of identity especially in cases of 'logical discrepancy' without insisting on any other documents".

Logical discrepancies cited while reconciling the rolls with the 2002 voter list include mismatches in a parent's name or the age gap between a voter and their parent being less than 15 or more than 50 years.

Divan referred to a large number of unmapped voters and said there was hardly any time left for remedial measures as the process was set to conclude on February 14.

He said the poll panel had to upload the reasons for putting names in the "logical discrepancy" list.

Divan contended 1.36 crore people had been issued notices after their credentials were found to have logical discrepancies.

Taking the issue further, the CM said in some cases people who were alive had been declared dead by the poll panel.

"Their SIR process is only for deletion, not for inclusion," she said.

She flagged difficulties being faced by citizens due to the exercise and said they were relieved that the court had earlier given a direction to include Aadhaar as one of the documents in the process.

Banerjee alleged that despite the apex court's direction, the panel was not allowing Aadhaar and kept insisting on other documents.

"In other states, documents like domicile certificate, family register card, etc are allowed... they are only targeting Bengal on the eve of elections. What was the hurry?" she asked.

She said the process, which usually takes two years, was being undertaken in a short span of three months even during the festival and harvesting season in the state.

She also flagged the issue of deaths of officials involved in the exercise and deployment of micro-observers in the state.

Senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the Election Commission, countered the charges and alleged that the West Bengal government provided the services of 80 grade-two officers for overseeing the SIR process.

Banerjee contested that and said the state provided whatever was sought by the commission.

When the counsel appearing for the commission interrupted, Banerjee, with folded hands, said, "Please allow me to speak, sir!" She flagged that married women were being put to notice for shifting to their in-laws' home or using their husbands' surname.

When the counsel objected to her submissions, CJI Kant interrupted, saying, "Madam has come all the way to speak." During the hearing, the bench observed that "genuine persons must remain on the electoral roll".

The CJI said every problem could be solved and it must be ensured that no innocent person was left out.

Divan said in many cases, names of persons issued notices for logical discrepancies were misspelt and it could be rectified easily.

The CJI referred to a Bengali dialect and observed that at times names could be misspelt in English because of it. PTI SJK ABA ABA SAP SAP