SC seeks details of appeals decided by SIR tribunals in West Bengal

The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Election Commission to provide details of cases disposed of and pending before appellate tribunals handling appeals against voter deletions during West Bengal's SIR. The court said monitoring disposal rates was its primary concern

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Election Commission to provide details of the appeals decided so far by the apex court-appointed tribunals, which were tasked to deal with the pleas of those deleted during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana took note of the plea filed by Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury seeking expeditious disposal of SIR-related cases before appellate tribunals in the state. “You need to give us the quantum of disposals so far because just filing an appeal is not enough. What is happening to the appeal also has to be seen,” Justice Bagchi said.

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The top court sought details of the cases decided and pending before the appellate tribunals in the state. The counsel for Chowdhury raised the issue of denial of public distribution system (PDS) benefits to those deleted during the SIR.

He said such benefits should not be denied till appeal is decided against them. The bench, however, said the grievance related to denial of PDS benefits to those deleted from the electoral rolls would have to be raised before Calcutta High Court in a separate case.

“If you enlarge the scope of your petition to PDS, we will not be able to entertain it. It has to go to the high court. But if you are on monitoring of the appellate tribunals, we will consider looking at it. We are of the firm opinion that whether the State of West Bengal uses deletion of the SIR data to deny PDS to individuals is a different cause of action. It has to go before the Calcutta High Court,” Justice Bagchi said.

Justice Bagchi said the main issue was the quantum of disposals and not deletion or non-deletion of voters from the electoral list. “You need to rethink the entire architecture of the appellate tribunal. There are things like online access to judges. There are a lot of futuristic things also which can be done. But the main issue is the quantum of disposals. We are not on deletion or non-deletion. We are on the quantum of disposals,” he told the poll panel.

Senior advocate DS Naidu, appearing for the poll panel, urged the bench to list the plea on August 25 along with similar matters. “To be listed on August 25, tagged with the pending matters,” the bench said while issuing the notice to the poll panel on the plea of Chowdhury.

On March 10, the top court had ordered the setting up of independent appellate tribunals headed by former high court judges to hear appeals against exclusions from voter lists during the SIR of electoral rolls in West Bengal.

Besides setting up appellate tribunals, the top court had allowed deployment of trial court judges of West Bengal, Orissa and Jharkhand to deal with the SIR-related complaints. The SIR exercise in West Bengal was held under the court’s supervision amid allegations of irregularities and a “trust deficit” between the then state government and the Election Commission.