The Supreme Court on Monday said that it cannot allow people whose appeals against exclusion from the voter list are pending to vote in the upcoming West Bengal elections..A Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi made the observation during the hearing of a batch of petitions challenging the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the State."What is the question of allowing them to vote? If we allow this then, let us stop the voting rights of people who are included then," CJI Kant said.The Court noted that over 34 lakh appeals have been filed so far before the appellate tribunals by people challenging their non-inclusion in the voter list..Senior Advocate Kalyan Bandopadhyay, appearing for petitioners who have challenged the SIR, said that the people of West Bengal look up to the Court."An impression has been given that all pending cases have been adjudicated. April 6 voter list has been published. All voters are under adjudication," Bandopadhyay added.Justice Bagchi remarked that those whose appeals are allowed by April 9, would be included in the voter list."If adjudication is completed by April 9 even after a few days later...electoral roll will include their names for the elections. That was clarified earlier," the judge said.However, the Court also said that it cannot allow people whose cases are pending to vote in the elections."We cannot create a situation where we burden the appellate tribunal judges. There is another plea with us today which stops the appeals," CJI Kant said..Meanwhile, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) today submitted a status report on its probe into the gherao of judicial officers in Malda district on April 1 by those protesting their deletion from the voter list.CJI Kant asked the agency to inform it about the political background of the accused persons."We want to know if any of these people arrested had any political background. We don't want this to be an academic exercise. This has to be taken to a logical conclusion," the Court said..Seven judicial officers, including three women judges, involved in the SIR of electoral rolls were gheraoed on April 1 for hours in Malda district.The top court then registered a suo motu case. During the hearing of the case on April 2, the Court ordered deployment of central armed forces for the safety of the judicial officers. The Court also ordered that the investigation into the Malda incident be taken over by central agencies..The Court today recorded that judicial officers deployed in the SIR exercise had decided over 60.04 lakh cases. It was also noted that over 34.35 lakh appeals have been filed before the appellate tribunals till date.The Bench directed that the security provided to the judicial officers shall not be withdrawn without permission of the Court."We appreciate the zeal and enthusiasm of judicial officers. We have no reason to doubt that former chief Justices and judges [appellate tribunals] will continue the work to uphold the process of due process," the Court said in the order.
