Bengal SIR: Four in 10 voter inclusion appeals filed by election authorities, tribunal judge says
text_fields
Around four in 10 appeals challenging the inclusion of voters before an appellate tribunal in Murshidabad were filed by the Additional Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of West Bengal, retired Calcutta High Court judge Justice Indrajit Chatterjee has said.
Voters from 11 assembly constituencies, from Farakka to Nabagram, have 6,35,983 appeals pending before Appellate Tribunal 11 following the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. Justice Chatterjee told The Wire that around 2.54 lakh of these appeals against voter inclusion were filed by the Additional CEO.
The appeals were not petitions by voters seeking restoration of their names, but applications by election authorities seeking exclusion of voters whose names had already been included in the rolls.
The Election Commission told the Supreme Court on September 16 that West Bengal had 38,31,429 appeals, including 22,21,118 from excluded electors and 16,10,311 challenging voter inclusion. The Commission did not disclose the source of the latter appeals in its submission.
Justice Chatterjee said the appeals filed by the Commission were already on its portal and that he had ordered the inclusion of several voters against whom appeals had been filed by both the Commission and individuals.
According to the report, judicial officers in the 11 constituencies adjudicated 9,02,351 electors and marked 4,00,681 as “not eligible”, a rejection rate of 44.4%. The constituencies accounted for 17.2% of all pending electoral appeals in the state despite representing 3.7% of its assembly seats.
The report said 97.6% of those marked ineligible in these constituencies were Muslim. Ten of the 11 constituencies have Muslim majorities.
Justice Chatterjee said hearing and writing a reasoned order on an appeal takes at least 30 minutes, allowing a maximum of about 10 cases a day. Of his 6,35,983 appeals, 6,34,156 remain unresolved.
Chatterjee has informed the Calcutta High Court Chief Justice that he will step down as tribunal judge on November 2, citing his daily commute between Salt Lake and Joka. The Election Commission has proposed increasing the number of tribunals from 19 to 42 and allowing hearings from judges’ residences.