New Delhi, 09 October (H.S.):

The Supreme Court will hear a case concerning the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal on October 16. A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant said it would consider whether voters whose names were deleted during the SIR process and who have challenged the deletions through appeals should be permitted to vote in the upcoming municipal elections in the state.

During Friday’s hearing, the Chief Justice said the court was considering two key priorities. One option was to defer appeals filed by individuals challenging the deletion of their names from the electoral rolls and take them up at a later stage.

The court was informed that more than 100,000 appeals seeking inclusion of names in the electoral rolls had already been decided, with 93 per cent of the applicants found eligible for inclusion. However, approximately 170,000 appeals are still pending.

Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan urged the court to prioritise appeals involving voters in municipalities where elections are scheduled to take place in November. He submitted that the tribunals would require considerable time to decide these appeals and also said that the elections should be announced by November 15.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan submitted that voters whose appeals remained undecided might be unable to exercise their franchise in the forthcoming elections.

Earlier, on August 11, the Supreme Court had questioned the functioning of the tribunals and observed that their performance needed to be reviewed. The court had warned that, if appeals continued to be heard at the existing pace, the next round of elections could arrive before the proceedings were completed.

The petition was filed by Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury. During an earlier hearing, the petitioner's counsel had stressed the need to examine the pace at which cases were being disposed of. Presenting documents before the court, the lawyer said his own appeal remained pending, allegedly preventing him from receiving subsidised food grains under the public distribution system.

In response, Justice Joymalya Bagchi questioned whether the state government could deny ration benefits to an individual merely because their name had been deleted from the electoral rolls. The court also said it would monitor the outcomes of the tribunal proceedings.

The petition further contends that inadequate infrastructure in remote areas makes it extremely difficult for residents to travel to Kolkata to participate in hearings.

In an earlier order, the Supreme Court had directed the Election Commission of India to submit comprehensive details of the number of cases received by the tribunals so far.

The October 16 hearing is expected to address the implications of pending appeals for voters seeking to participate in the forthcoming municipal elections in West Bengal.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar