Kolkata, Dec 22 || The Election Commission of India (ECI) has made it clear that academic qualification certificates issued by individual educational institutions, including schools and colleges, will not be recognised as valid identity documents or age proof during the hearing sessions on the claims and objections to the draft voters’ list in West Bengal, which will start this week.
The ECI has made it clear that academic qualification certificates issued by registered education boards or education councils, or universities, will be honoured as valid identity documents or age proofs in the hearing sessions, insiders from the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) have said.
An academic qualification certificate is one of the 12 documents specified by the ECI that will have to be furnished by “unmapped voters” to get their names retained in the voters’ list. “Unmapped voters” are those who were unable to show their links with the voters’ list of 2002, the last time when Special Intensive Revision (SIR) was conducted in West Bengal, either through “self-mapping” or through “progeny mapping.”