West Bengal SIR: Supreme Court asks ECI for data on appeals decided by appellate tribunals

The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to furnish data on the number of appeals disposed of by appellate tribunals dealing with cases arising out of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal.

A Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana passed the order on a petition related to the functioning of appellate tribunals in West Bengal.

"You need to give us the quantum of disposals so far because just filing an appeal is not enough. What is happening to the appeal also has to be seen," Justice Bagchi told the ECI.

However, the Court also said that the grievance related to denial of public distribution system (PDS) benefits to those deleted from the electoral rolls would have to be raised before Calcutta High Court in a separate case.

"If you enlarge the scope of your petition to PDS, we will not be able to entertain it. It has to go to the High Court. But if you are on monitoring of the appellate tribunals, we will consider looking at it. We are of the firm opinion that whether the State of West Bengal uses deletion of the SIR data to deny PDS to individuals is a different cause of action. It has to go before the Calcutta High Court," Justice Bagchi said.

Earlier, the counsel appearing for petitioner Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said that the SIR deletions were being used to deny people PDS. He also referred to the slow progress of appeals before appellate tribunals.

Justice Bagchi said that the main issue was quantum of disposals and not deletion or non-deletion of voters from the electoral list.

"You need to rethink the entire architecture of the appellate tribunal. There are things like online access to judges. There are a lot of futuristic things also which can be done. But the main issue is the quantum of disposals. We are not on deletion or non-deletion. We are on the quantum of disposals," the judge told the ECI.

The Court then directed the ECI to furnish details on the disposal of appeals by the appellate tribunals.

Senior Advocate Dama Seshadri Naidu, representing the ECI, urged the Court to list the matter on August 25 along with similar matters. The request was granted.

"To be listed on August 25, tagged with the pending matters," the Bench said.

Lakhs of voters in West Bengal were prevented from exercising the right to vote in the recent assembly elections in West Bengal as they stood excluded from the electoral roll after the SIR. Their appeals remained pending before appellate tribunals set up on the orders of the Supreme Court, which earlier refused to halt the process.

In May, the top court affirmed the ECI's power to conduct SIR of electoral rolls. However, it also said that the ECI can examine whether a person is an Indian citizen for the limited purpose of deciding whether that person should be included in voter rolls.

In cases where the Commission is not satisfied that a person fulfils the statutory conditions for inclusion in the electoral rolls, it can refer such an individual to the competent authority of the Central government for adjudication in accordance with law, the Court had ruled.

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