The Supreme Court has said applications from West Bengal voters excluded from the electoral rolls during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process will receive priority in areas where municipal elections are approaching, potentially allowing thousands of pending cases to be addressed before polling.
The assurance came after lawyer Gopalshankar Narayan drew the court’s attention to the need for an early hearing of cases related to the SIR process. Municipal elections are expected in several West Bengal civic bodies in November, although the Election Commission has not yet announced the polling schedule.
According to the submission before the court, applications from around 1.70 lakh voters in Kolkata and Howrah alone are pending before SIR tribunals. The lawyer told the court that if the cases were not heard soon, the tribunals might not have enough time to dispose of the applications before the municipal elections. That could leave applicants unable to vote in the civic polls.
Chief Justice Surya Kant said the Supreme Court was aware that municipal elections were approaching in West Bengal and that many applications remained pending before the tribunals. He indicated that the court was considering the tribunal-related issue and that a solution would be found. Applications from voters in constituencies where elections are due to take place would be taken up on a priority basis, he said.
The West Bengal SIR case may be listed for hearing on Friday, according to the Chief Justice. If it cannot be heard then, the court may take it up on October 29. The case had previously been adjourned twice, the lawyer pointed out while seeking an early hearing.
The pending applications have assumed importance because several voters whose names were removed during the SIR process have approached tribunals for inclusion. The source report said some of these voters were unable to cast ballots in the Assembly election and in the by-elections in Nandigram and Rejinagar. On an earlier occasion, when the issue of voters being excluded from by-elections was raised, the Chief Justice had said that the matter could not be heard immediately and that cases would be taken up according to the listing.
The next stage of the process will depend on the Supreme Court’s listing and directions, as well as the tribunals’ ability to decide the pending applications. The Election Commission is yet to formally announce the municipal election dates, though voting could take place in Kolkata, Howrah and other municipalities in the last week of November after the festival period, with counting potentially scheduled for early December.
