A city-based research institute that has been analysing SIR numbers and highlighting the unfair burden of exclusion on minorities has now prepared a guide on how to file appeals with tribunals tasked with deciding the fate of disenfranchised voters.
Sabar Institute released the citizens’ handbook online on Monday, describing it as a comprehensive toolkit to help deleted voters navigate the cumbersome process of reclaiming their vote.
The manual details the step-by-step process for filing an SIR appeal. It can be downloaded for free from the Sabar website: https://sabarinstitute.org/.
The steps are divided into categories.
Tarique Quasimuddin, an advocate at Calcutta High Court. Sarfaraz Ahmed Khan, professor at NUJS. Darshana Mitra, assistant professor at NLS, Bengaluru
Eligibility: To file an appeal, one must first check the supplementary lists published by the Election Commission to confirm that they have been deleted from the revised rolls. The lists, released since March 23, contain the names approved and deleted in specific booths. They are available on the EC website.
Preparing the petition: It should include the appellant’s details as well as the grounds for exclusion, if known, or the absence of any clear reason.
The EC is not citing reasons for removing voters from the rolls. The best guess deleted voters can make is a “logical discrepancy”, for which they may have been summoned for hearings before being placed under adjudication.
Timely submission: Appeals can be filed online or offline at the office of the concerned district electoral officer.
Tracking: The petition can be tracked using an “appeal number”.
The manual provides a flowchart for online appeals, starting from visiting the poll panel’s website to downloading the acknowledgement number for future reference.
Sabar has been conducting legal aid camps for citizens living in and around Calcutta. However, the scale of the exclusions limits the reach of such efforts.
More than 27 lakh names have been deleted from the revised electoral rolls after adjudication. This newspaper reported on April 11 that only over 2 lakh appeals had been filed online and another 5 lakh offline.
“Large numbers of affected individuals in rural and remote areas continue to remain beyond the scope of these efforts, often without access to timely information or assistance. It is in response to this gap that we have developed this manual,” the foreword to the handbook says.
“Conceived as a practical and accessible resource, this manual is intended for grassroots workers, community leaders, and citizens who stand at the frontlines of this issue,” it says.
“It seeks to simplify the appeals process, clarify procedural pathways, and enable timely, informed action. More importantly, it is designed to strengthen collective response — so that individuals are
not left to navigate this process in isolation, but are supported within their communities.”
The manual has been developed by Tarique Quasimuddin, an advocate at Calcutta High Court; Sarfaraz Ahmed Khan, professor of law at the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS); Darshana Mitra, assistant professor at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bengaluru; and Sabir Ahamed, director of Sabar Institute.
“The sheer scale of exclusion is enormous. Even if each judge heading a tribunal disposes of 100 cases a day, seven days a week, adjudicating 27 lakh cases will take close to four years. But we cannot sit idle while facing this daunting challenge. Our job is to scale up the campaign to help the maximum number of people file appeals. We have to give them that opportunity to put their foot in the door,” Mitra told Metro.
The handbook includes several model appeals designed for appellants flagged with a variety of logical discrepancies — for example, erroneous mapping to a relative present in the 2002 rolls, or an age difference of more than 50 or less than 15 years between a parent and offspring.