The Supreme Court will hear on October 16 a plea seeking permission for voters excluded during Bengal’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls to participate in the upcoming Kolkata and Howrah municipal elections, scheduled for late November.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana said it was aware of the difficulties facing SIR tribunals, which are handling appeals related to the revision of electoral rolls. The electoral process for the two municipal elections is expected to be completed by December 7, according to details cited in the application.
The case has acquired urgency because the Election Commission of India’s affidavits indicate that 1.7 lakh appeals are pending in Kolkata and Howrah, where municipal elections are due. The pending cases include appeals by people seeking the inclusion of their names as well as applications seeking deletion of voters.
Chief Justice Kant said the court was considering asking tribunals to prioritise appeals filed by people seeking inclusion in the electoral rolls. Appeals seeking deletion could be taken up at a later stage, he said. “We are trying to sort out these problems like the bulk of the appeals are of those who are seeking deletion of names of voters,” the Chief Justice said, according to reports cited in the proceedings.
The court also flagged difficulties with the software used in the process. Justice Bagchi said there was a software-related problem, while the bench considered how the tribunals could manage the volume and different categories of appeals before the civic elections.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan and senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for the petitioners, told the court that 93 per cent of appeals pending before SIR tribunals had been allowed so far. They sought directions for the expedited disposal of the remaining appeals so that affected voters could participate in the municipal elections.
The petitioners also raised concerns about the position of voters whose names had been deleted from the electoral rolls. They said such voters were uncertain whether they would be permitted to vote in the civic elections because they had not been allowed to vote in recent bypolls.
The proceedings place the tribunals’ workload, software capacity and sequencing of appeals at the centre of the dispute. The Supreme Court’s October 16 hearing is expected to address the plea concerning voters in Kolkata and Howrah before the municipal election process advances further.
