NEW DELHI: With the Kolkata and Howrah municipal elections due in Dec and lakhs of appeals challenging post-SIR deletion and inclusion of names pending, Supreme Court Friday said the tribunals set up to examine claims should prioritise the challenges to deletions.“There is a large chunk of appeals which seek deletion of names… These can be pushed behind the appeals which seek inclusion of names,” said a bench of CJI Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana. They said they would consider on Oct 16 how to expedite hearings on petitions.
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The bench’s observation came after advocates Prashant Bhushan and G Sankaranarayanan complained that pendency of lakhs of appeals would result in disenfranchising a large number of voters in the municipal elections. It would be appropriate to allow those who have appealed against deletion of their names to vote, they said.The bench said, “We are already working on the issue of pendency of appeals before the tribunals… Probably, we will find a via media soon… Why the tribunals are taking time is intrinsically related to issues which require to be fixed including architecture of the software, etc.”