New Delhi: The Supreme Court said on Wednesday that the wrongful exclusion of voters from West Bengal’s electoral rolls before the upcoming election is not final and can be corrected by the Election Commission’s Appellate Tribunals.
At the same time, a bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant, Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M.Pancholi also stressed that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process to update the rolls must continue to its “logical conclusion” even after polling.
Polling will be held in two phases on 23 and 29 April. The ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC)
is alleging massive deletions and exclusion of genuine voters from the electoral list in the name of “logical discrepancy”.Logical discrepancies include implausible age gaps of 10 years between parent and child, spelling mismatches, and duplicate entries for one voter.
Amid a challenge to the West Bengal’s SIR of electoral rolls by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and other individual petitioners, the bench spelled out how the EC’s Appellate Tribunals would decide on the inclusion or exclusion of voters from the list.
“Even if a person is excluded today and is unable to vote in this particular election, but that exclusion appears to be unjustified to the tribunal headed by a former chief Justice; we see no reason why the decision can be altered and he be included,” the top court said.“Likewise a person incorrectly included and voted for this election. And your representative makes a report to the tribunal, we see no reason why the entire cleansing exercise taken by you should not be taken to its logical conclusion.”
On 10 March, the top court directed the election body to notify the formation of Appellate Tribunals headed by former judges and chief justices, citing concerns over the SIR exercise not being completed in time before the elections and the Calcutta HC being burdened.
Furthermore, when the court was apprised of how the adjudication went to the Appellate Tribunal, and that one individual suddenly deposited 30,000 forms for new/fresh voters, the CJI remarked that this is “absolutely not unusual” and has happened in every state. The ruling clarifies that genuine voters whose names are missing from the final list will not be left without a remedy. They will have the Appellate Tribunal for appeals and hearings.
The apex court also noted its satisfaction with a communication from Calcutta High Court Chief Justice Sujoy Paul stating that out of almost 60 lakh objections, 47 lakh had already been resolved by Tuesday, and all objections would be resolved by 7 April. The matter has, therefore, been listed next for 7 April itself.
It also said that 19 Appellate Tribunals set up by the Election Commission in West Bengal for final adjudication on exclusion would have full access to records and materials placed before judicial officers to effectively decide on appeals.
The bench also noted that these tribunals must examine the records, consider the reasons given by judicial officers, hear the parties and pass “reasoned orders”, thereby giving them liberty to regulate the procedure on their own in line with the principles of natural justice.
It added that the tribunals should not entertain fresh objections unless they had verified the genuineness of such claims.
(Edited by Tony Rai)