West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee expressed her “extreme happiness” on Thursday following the Supreme Court’s order regarding appellate tribunals and the relaxation of the earlier freeze on voter lists. Despite the ruling, the Election Commission (EC) has yet to clear the air regarding the operational procedures of the 19 tribunals that commenced work earlier this week.
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The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered that people cleared by appellate tribunals for inclusion in electoral rolls at least two days before polling will be entitled to vote in the upcoming West Bengal assembly elections, significantly relaxing the earlier freeze on voter lists and offering relief to many caught in the ongoing special intensive revision exercise.
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“I got the good news soon after the boarding the chopper. I have been telling the people (whose names were deleted after adjudication) to have patience and appeal before the tribunals. Today or tomorrow their names would be enrolled. I am so happy. Nobody is happier than me today,” Banerjee told reporters in Cooch Behar.
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She added: “Today the Supreme Court has ordered that the first supplementary list (comprising names of voters whose cases are cleared by the appellate tribunals) will be published on April 21 for the first phase polling. The second list for the second phase polling would be published on April 27. Soon after the lists are published TMC leaders and workers would take printout of the voters’ slips and distribute them so that these people could vote.”
Under the top court directions, appellate tribunals must decide appeals by April 21 for the first phase of polling on April 23, and by April 27 for the second phase scheduled on April 29. If an appeal is allowed within this window, the voter’s name must be restored through a supplementary roll, enabling them to cast their vote. The development assumes significance because electoral rolls for the first and second phases were frozen on April 6 and April 9, respectively, effectively disqualifying those whose claims were not adjudicated in time. At the time, the tribunals were barely functional and had cleared just two names.
However, despite the judicial relief, ECI has struggled to provide transparency regarding the tribunals’ operations. With only five days remaining until the first cut-off date, questions remain about public hearings and the volume of cases processed.
“The appellate tribunals have started working. In all 19 retired judges are working. We don’t have the exact figures on how many numbers of cases have been disposed of as the dashboard hasn’t been set up yet,” said chief electoral officer of West Bengal, Manoj Kumar Agarwal.
EC officials also couldn’t provide any clarity on whether the tribunals would be holding any public hearing for the 2.7 million voters whose names were deleted from the roll after adjudication.
Reacting to the matter, BJP state president Samik Bhattacharya said, “We didn’t conduct the SIR. It is the EC’s domain. However, the EC did not hear several Form 7 submissions from the BJP (which challenged the inclusion of dead and fake voters). With due respect to the EC, we are not satisfied with the EC’s working.”
