The Supreme Court will seek a report from the Calcutta High Court on the functioning of the 19 appellate tribunals set up to hear appeals of voters deleted from the electoral rolls.
On Monday, senior advocate Devadatt Kamat mentioned the matter before the bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi.
“There is a practical difficulty; appellate tribunals are not functioning. Lawyers are not being allowed. They are only taking online applications. Citizens from thousands of kilometres are not allowed representation. This court’s orders are not being followed,” Kamat told the bench.
Chief Justice Surya Kant remarked that a report will be sought from the Calcutta High Court, which is overseeing the appeals process.
Last week the apex court, invoking Article 142, had instructed the Election Commission to ensure that names of “deleted” voters who have appealed for inclusions be cleared if the documents are found to be in order.
The poll panel has been given time till Tuesday for the first phase of polling in 152 Assembly constituencies to be held on April 23 and April 27 for the remaining seats scheduled for April 29.
Since the beginning of the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, 58 lakhs names were deleted after the publication of the draft roll last December. An additional five lakh voters found their names removed from the final rolls published on February 28.
The poll panel had also marked 60.06 lakh voters under adjudication of whom 27, 16, 393 voters were deleted.
Since the SIR exercise started, over 90 lakh names have been deleted from the voter roll in Bengal, many of whom have appealed to the appellate tribunals for inclusion in the voters list.
A three-member committee was formed by Calcutta High Court Chief Justice Sujoy Paul to frame the guidelines for the tribunals, which will operate from the premises of Joka’s Syama Prasad Mookerjee National Institute of Water and Sanitation, in the outskirts of Calcutta.
Last week the Calcutta High Court had informed the top court 34.45 lakh appeals were pending before the tribunals.
