The Election Commission (EC) could publish the outcome of 10 lakh out of the 29 lakh “under adjudication” cases in Bengal in the first supplementary list that deleted around 41 per cent of the voters for lack of documents, poll panel sources said on Wednesday.
The EC had disposed of around 29 lakh “under adjudication” cases when the first supplementary list was published on Monday but barring the 10 lakh cases, none had the e-signatures of judicial officers. An e-signature is mandatory for disposal of a case.
“By Monday, the EC had received 29 lakh cases, which 705 judicial officers had disposed of, but only 10 lakh of them contained the judicial officers’ e-sign. This is the reason why the first supplementary list contained only 10 lakh names,” said a source in the poll panel.
Sources said they did not count the total number of voters included or deleted while publishing the add-on list.
“Preliminary reports from districts suggest that about 41 per cent of the names could have been deleted. As no comprehensive calculation has been done so far, it is not possible to announce the exact number of excluded and included voters post-adjudication,” said another EC official.
Poll panel sources said the system developed for judicial officers to dispose of “under-adjudication” cases included an e-sign button. “The judicial officers were supposed to press the button before disposing of any case. But it seems it was not done in several cases,” said a source.
A bureaucrat said the e-signature of judicial officers was important because they adjudicated the eligibility of voters and specified the reasons behind their inclusion or deletion in the rolls.
“It is not possible to sign each of the orders physically because the officers were disposing of 225-250 cases per day. Therefore, the e-sign button was added to the system.Once the officers press the button, their e-signature wouldbe registered in the disposed of cases,” the official explained.
Sources said that the disposed of cases lacking the e-signature would be sent back for judicial officers to log into the system and sign them properly.
The second supplementary list, which will contain the e-signed cases, is likely to be published on Friday.
“It is expected that more than 35 lakh cases, including those 10 lakh that were already published onMonday, would be disposed of by Friday. But it remains to be seen how many of them contain the e-signature of the officers,” said a source.
Sources said “under-adjudication” cases for 9,000 booths had been published so far.
“There are 80,000-odd booths in the state. So it can be said that under-adjudication voters in large parts of the state were yet to know their status,” the official added.
A section of the officials said voters were facing the brunt of the delay in the publication of supplementary lists.
“First, there are 60.06 lakh voters in the “under adjudication” category. As only 10 lakh names were published in the first supplementary list, the majority of such voters are in anxiety. Second, if they get to know earlythat their names have been deleted, they can appealbefore the tribunals. If the add-on lists contain only afew lakh, the deleted voters in the second or third list will barely get any time to appeal,” a bureaucrat said.
