The Supreme Court on Thursday stepped in to address growing concerns over the stress caused by the increased workload being borne by Booth Level Officers (BLOs) engaged in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in addition to their regular duties, directing the concerned state governments to deploy additional manpower to ease their work pressure.

A Bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi directed all concerned state governments to “depute additional staff” so that the long working hours spent by BLOs on SIR duties can be reduced. The court also said that individual requests for exemption from the SIR duty, if backed by specific reasons, must be examined sympathetically and dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

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The Bench clarified that s

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