Supreme Court declines deadline as 20 lakh voters remain excluded in Bengal SIR

The Supreme Court on Monday was told that about 55 per cent people of the 60 lakh people whose names were removed from the electoral rolls in West Bengal stand excluded even after adjudication of claims and objections by judicial officers deployed for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in the State.

The submission was made by Senior Advocate Shyam Divan before a Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipin Pancholi during the hearing of petitions challenging the legality of the ongoing SIR in West Bengal.

Divan said the judicial officers have to be complimented as over 60 Lakh cases have been decided by them.

"Out of these 60 lakh cases, available data of 40 lakh cases indicates that the inclusion rate is about 55 percent which is 24 Lakhs and the exclusion rate is 45 percent which is 20 Lakh. The rejection rate appears to be very high despite the judicial safeguards… These were mapped individuals. Almost 7 lakh have already filed and several lakh appeals are in process of being filed. Appellate tribunals are yet to be fully operational," Divan, who appeared for Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, added.

Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the State of West Bengal, said that the appellate tribunals should pass interim orders for those prima facie found wrongly excluded.

However, the Court declined to do the same and also refused to set any deadline for appellate tribunals to decide the appeals.

Justice Bagchi said that the electoral list needs to be frozen now in view of the upcoming elections.

"Tribunals will go on hearing and we do not want to rush it, but we need to freeze the list somewhere. One layer of adjudication is done by the judicial officers. Appellate process can take a month or even 60 days, but just because they are mapped does not mean..." the judge said.

The Court said that the 19 appellate tribunals comprise former chief justices and judges and thus it would leave the decision to them.

"We will leave it to the appellate tribunals," CJI Kant said.