Face jail up to a yr for giving fake docus in hearing: CEO
Times of India | 27 December 2025
Kolkata: Bengal chief electoral officer (CEO) Manoj Agarwal on Friday warned that anyone submitting bogus or fake documents to enrol as a voter would face up to one year's imprisonment. The warning came on the eve of hearing process of SIR-2 for voters that gets underway on Saturday and will continue till Feb 7. In Diamond Harbour block 2, the hearing process started on Friday for 200-plus voters.
Warning those who attend hearing to present valid documents, Agarwal said foreigners who had acquired Indian documents illegally and managed to enrol names in electoral rolls would face criminal proceedings on detection of offences during the SIR hearing. These individuals will also come under the scanner of the home ministry and multiple central agencies, which will reverify their documents.
Citing Section 31 of the RP Act, Subrata Gupta, EC's special roll observer, said: "If any person makes false declarations regarding the preparation, revision, or correction of electoral rolls, offenders face up to one-year imprisonment, a fine, or both for knowingly providing false information." Even the persons can face additional punishment as per BNS.
Another EC official said, "The persons who do not have proper documents, but are listed as unmapped voters in the draft electoral rolls, should admit their mistakes in the hearing and escape criminal proceedings. If they do not admit their mistakes and withdraw their names from the roll, they will face criminal proceedings upon detection of irregularities during the verification of the documents that they had submitted in the hearing." The official stated that the concerned BLOs would also be held responsible for listing foreigners in the electoral roll and would face action.
"Even if their documents are genuine, if there are inputs from the FRRO's office with specific proof that they had manipulated documents and even being foreigners, they obtained Indian identity documents will face criminal proceedings," the official said.
To keep vigil on the hearing process, the EC has included micro-observers but will not allow any BLA during hearings. The EC arranged training of the EROs on Friday and asked roll observers to visit different hearing venues to prevent malpractice. Observers were instructed to monitor proceedings, record any deviation of norms and report any malpractice to the EC.