West Bengal SIR: Each Judicial Officer decided between 12 to 18 objections an hour

900 odd judicial officers deciding objections to the exclusion of voters from the electoral list during the special intensive revision (SIR) of the voter roll in West Bengal decided 52 lakh objections in a span of 27 working days, data has revealed.

From February 23 to April 2, 52 lakh cases of voters objecting to their exclusion from the final electoral roll were decided.

This amounts to a disposal rate of 1.92 lakh cases a day. These cases were adjudicated by 900 judicial officers.

Assuming each judicial officer worked only on working days (and did not work on Sundays, second and fourth Saturdays and public holidays) in this time span, each judicial officer heard and disposed of approximately 214 objections per day.

Assuming they worked for 12 hours a day, that would translate to 18 cases/ objections in a hour.

If they worked on all 39 days including 4 public holidays, 5 Sundays, 1 second Saturday and 2 fourth Saturdays, days which are usually holidays for the district judiciary and the Calcutta High Court, that would be a total disposal rate of over 1.33 lakh cases a day with each judicial officers having disposed off over 148 objections each day or nearly 12 cases/ objections per hour.

According to a report by PTI, these 900 judicial officers are expected to complete the adjudication of the approximately 8 lakh pending cases by April 7, 43 days since the adjudication process began.

Nineteen appellate tribunals headed by former High Court judges have also started working from April 4 to consider appeals by persons whose claim for inclusion in the voter list was rejected by the judicial officers.

Debayan Roy contributed to this story.