Five suspended in West Bengal for voter data breach: Election Commission

Election Commission of India (ECI) has directed West Bengal Chief Secretary to suspend five persons, including a casual worker, and lodge FIRs against them-two Electoral Registration Office (ERO) and two Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AERO) for committing “grave lapses” and “failing to perform their duties”, violating the policy of data security while sharing their login credentials of the ER database to unauthorised persons. Similar action will also be taken against a casual worker as well.
The state Chief Secretary Manoj Pant has been directed to start departmental proceedings against them as well.
“The Commission has taken serious note of the grave lapses committed by the officers in view of the provisions quoted above and has decided that following action shall be taken against the officers with immediate effect,” the ECI wrote in the letter to the state Chief Secretary.
“The officers shall be placed under suspension for their failure in supervising the election related work, with immediate effect and suitable disciplinary proceedings be initiated against them without any delay,” the ECI directed.
The EROs and AEROs from South 24 Parganas district’s Baruipur-- Debottam Dutta Choudhury, WBCS (Exe.), a 2012 batch officer and Deputy Project Director (Monitoring). District Rural Development Cell, South 24 Parganas and ERO of 137-Baruipur Purba Assembly Constituency, Tathagata Mondal, Assistant Programme Officer, MGNREGS, Joynagar-1 Block and AERO of 137- Baruipur Purba AC; Biplab Sarkar, WBCS (Exe.), 2012 batch, presently working as District Officer Minority Affairs, Purba Medinipur and ERO of 206-Моупа Аssembly Constituency and Sudipta Das, Panchayat Accounts & Audit Officer, Tamluk Block and AERO of 206-Moyna AC, who have been suspended, the letter mentioned which has been seen by ET.
Baruipur is in South 24 Parganas district while Moyna is located in East Midnapore district.
The Eci has also directed that FIRs should be lodged against the “erring EROs and AEROs for their actions, which potentially amount to criminal misconduct.” FIR shall also be lodged against the casual Data Entry Operator Surojit Halder, ECI said in its letter.
The poll panel further directed that “strict compliance of the above instructions shall be ensured and an action-taken report sent to the Commission at the earliest”.
“It has been reported that the said officers have not only failed to perform duty as ERO and AERO while disposing off the applications but also violated int policy of data security while sharing their login credentials of the ER database with unauthorized persons,” ECI secretary Sujeet Kumar Mishra pointed out.
In a letter to the Chief Secretary Manoj Pant, ECI, has also pointed out that “as per Sub-section (1) of Section 32, which inter-alia states that if any Electoral Registration Officer, Assistant Electoral Registration Officer or other person required by or under this Act to perform any official duty in connection with the preparation, revision or correction of an electoral toll or the inclusion of exclusion of any entry in or from that roll, is without reasonable cause, guilty of any act or omission in breach of such official duty, he shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than three months but which may extend to two years and with fine.”
ECI said that the Chief Electoral Officer-West Bengal Manoj Agarwal had forwarded a report on July 29 about “the wrongful addition of names in the electoral rolls by EROs and AEROs of AC No. 137 Baruipur and Purba district.
The West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer’s office has flagged major irregularities during sample checking of voters’ lists in West Bengal’s South 24 Parganas and East Midnapore districts. According to sources in the know, a large number of “fictitious voters” whose names were allegedly submitted and entered by two EROs without BLO verification was detected.For Reprint Rights: timescontent.com