Supreme Court Voter List Hearings: The Supreme Court has said it will take steps to speed up thousands of pending appeals related to voter list changes in West Bengal. The court is considering giving priority to people who want their names added back to the electoral rolls before hearing cases seeking the removal of other voters.
A bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and including Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana made these observations on Friday. The appeals are pending before 19 appellate tribunals handling cases linked to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal.
The matter came up after advocate Prashant Bhushan and senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan asked the court to ensure that the pending cases were decided quickly. They raised concerns about delays, especially with local body elections scheduled for November.
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Supreme Court Considers Priority for Voter Inclusion Appeals
During the hearing, the lawyers told the bench that delays in deciding appeals had affected voters in the state. The court was informed that around 18,000 people whose appeals were still pending could not vote in the Nandigram and Rejinagar bypolls.
The Chief Justice said appeals filed by people seeking inclusion in the voter list could be taken up first. Cases filed by those seeking the deletion of other voters could be heard later.
“Appeals for inclusion in voter list can be priority-wise,” the CJI said.
The bench also assured the petitioners that it would consider suitable steps to reduce the backlog. The Chief Justice observed, “We will do something to expedite hearings of appeals pending before tribunals”.
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ECINET Portal Issues and Appeal Backlog
The bench also discussed technical problems that may be slowing down the appeal process. Justice Joymalya Bagchi pointed to issues with the Election Commission’s ECINET portal, which is used in the electoral process.
“We need to thrash out some issues like software issues in the ECINET portal,” he said.
The court was also informed about the large gap between the number of appeals filed and those decided by the tribunals. According to figures submitted by the Election Commission of India in its affidavit, 38.20 lakh appeals had been filed, but only 1.02 lakh appeals had been disposed of in the period covered by the report. This left more than 37 lakh cases pending.
The petitioners also highlighted the high number of appeals that had been allowed. The bench was told that of the 1,26,194 appeals decided, around 93% were accepted, resulting in voters being added back to the electoral rolls.
The lawyers argued that the backlog needed to be cleared quickly so that people whose names had been wrongly removed could exercise their voting rights. With local body elections expected in November, they stressed that delays could create further problems for voters.
