Bengal SIR: SC Asks Tribunals To Speed Up Disposal Of Voter Appeals

Nearly 34 lakh appeals against voter deletions during West Bengal’s Special Intensive Revision remain pending before appellate tribunals, prompting the Supreme Court on Tuesday to call for faster disposal.

Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, hearing a petition over the slow progress of these cases, said the process could not take so long that it stretched until the next Assembly elections, as reported by The Times of India.

SC Seeks Pendency Data

A bench of CJI Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana said it would take stock of the performance of the tribunals, which were constituted on the Supreme Court’s orders. The court, however, declined to set a deadline for deciding the appeals.

Petitioner and Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, represented by senior advocate Rauf Rahim, said the tribunals were disposing of appeals at a “painfully slow” rate and needed an impetus to speed up the process.

Chowdhury said names of lakhs of poor people had been deleted from the electoral rolls in Murshidabad and they did not have the means to approach the Supreme Court.

“These tribunals were constituted on our orders. A substantial time has elapsed since they started working. We must consider their performance keeping in mind the pendency and disposals. Immediate concern is to take stock,” the bench said.

Justice Bagchi said that once the court received the statistics, it could provide guidance and information technology support to help speed up the process.

The bench directed the Election Commission to provide details of the pendency and disposals by August 25, when the matter will next be heard.

Rahim also told the court that appeals needed to be decided early as the West Bengal government had begun depriving deleted voters of benefits under welfare schemes.

The bench said this was a separate cause of action that should be adjudicated by the Calcutta High Court. “If you expand the scope of this petition, we will send it to HC,” it said, while declining to prescribe a timeline for disposal of the appeals.

Chowdhury said several people whose names had been deleted from the voter lists had already appealed before the tribunals and were waiting for decisions. However, he said the process and infrastructure of the tribunals were inadequate to ensure early disposal of such a large number of appeals while giving appellants a proper opportunity of hearing.