Supreme Court to hear plea against forcing Tamil Nadu Anganwadi workers into BLO work under threat of punishment, job loss

The Supreme Court of India on Monday (December 1, 2025) took serious note of a plea that Anganwadi workers are being pushed into Booth Level Officer (BLO) work for the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in Tamil Nadu under the threat of imprisonment and loss of jobs.

Appearing before a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, for Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), said Anganwadi workers were under “severe pressure” to attain “targets” in the distribution of enumeration forms for the SIR.

Mr. Sankaranarayanan said the Anganwadi staff thrust into the SIR were threatened with three months’ imprisonment under Section 32 of the Representation of the People Act of 1950 for the breach of official duty in connection with the preparation, etc, of electoral rolls” if their targets were not met. They would also lose their jobs.

“There have already been 21 instances of BLOs taking their own lives,” the senior counsel submitted

Chief Justice Kant said the issue would be taken up separately when the batch of petitions challenging the Tamil Nadu SIR came up for hearing later during the week.

“You are saying Anganwadi workers should not be employed in the SIR exercise…” Chief Justice Kant said.

Mr. Sankaranarayanan said the issue was more human than legal. He however informed the court that the enumeration phase has been extended from December 4 to December 11, 2025.

The plea in the Supreme Court follows a complaint filed by a Mumbai-based advocate in the National Human Rights Commission against the “inhuman workload and coercive pressure” imposed on BLOs during the second phase of the SIR, resulting in multiple cardiac arrests, collapses and deaths.

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Deaths of BLOs have been reported in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

An earlier petition filed by the ruling party of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu had highlighted the lack of due process as well as the unreasonably short timeline for the conduct of SIR in the State.

“The unilateral imposition of such an unprecedented, resource‑intensive and socially disruptive process on a State, without consultation or demonstrable administrative exigency, transgresses the federal structure of the Constitution, recognised as part of its basic structure” DMK had pointed out.