Bengal SIR: Supreme Court Seeks Report from Calcutta High Court over Functioning of Appellate Tribunals

The Supreme Court of India is set to call for a detailed report from the Calcutta High Court regarding the functioning of 19 appellate tribunals constituted to hear cases of voters whose names have been struck off electoral rolls. The issue was raised on Monday when senior advocate Devadatt Kamat mentioned the matter before a bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi.

Highlighting operational concerns, Kamat told the court, “There is a practical difficulty; appellate tribunals are not functioning. Lawyers are not being allowed. They are only taking online applications. Citizens from thousands of kilometres are not allowed representation. This court’s orders are not being followed.” Responding to the submissions, the Chief Justice observed that a report would be sought from the High Court, which is currently supervising the appellate mechanism.

This development comes in close heels of a recent direction by the apex court invoking Article 142, under which the Election Commission of India was instructed to process appeals filed by voters whose names had been deleted, ensuring reinstatement where documentation is found valid. The Commission has been granted time until Tuesday to dispose as many cases, ahead of the first phase of polling across 152 Assembly constituencies scheduled for 23 April, with subsequent phases set for 27 and 29 April.

The controversy stems from the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal. Since the draft rolls were published in December, approximately 58 lakh names have been removed. A further five lakh deletions were recorded following the publication of the final rolls on 28 February. Additionally, around 60.06 lakh voters were placed under adjudication, of whom 27,16,393 have already been excluded from the rolls. In total, more than 90 lakh names have been deleted during the revision process, prompting a surge in appeals before the designated tribunals.

To streamline the process, the Calcutta High Court had earlier constituted a three-member committee under Chief Justice Sujoy Paul to frame operational guidelines for these tribunals. The bodies are currently functioning from the premises of the Syama Prasad Mookerjee National Institute of Water and Sanitation on the outskirts of Kolkata. According to submissions made before the Supreme Court last week, as many as 34.45 lakh appeals remain pending before these tribunals, raising serious concerns over access to justice and the timely restoration of voting rights.