The Supreme Court on Monday flagged key concerns over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal, while pointing out that voters have a continuing right to remain on voter lists and that the process must not be distorted by the pressure of conducting elections.
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi was hearing a writ petition filed by voters whose appeals against exclusion from the electoral rolls are pending before appellate tribunals. The petitioners have sought extension of the cut-off date for freezing of electoral rolls, arguing that they should be allowed to vote in the upcoming Assembly elections if their appeals succeed.
The rolls, as per the Election Commission of India (ECI), have been frozen as on April 9.
"Voters have a continuing right to remain on election rolls. The right to remain a voter in the country in which you were born is not only a constitutional right, but also an emotional one. We need to protect it. We cannot get blinded by the dust and fury of impending elections," the Supreme Court bench noted.
At the outset, the Chief Justice indicated reluctance to interfere, observing that the tribunal should be allowed to decide the pending appeals. Counsel for the petitioners, however, alleged that the ECI was not cooperating with the appellate process by failing to produce relevant records.
Justice Bagchi, meanwhile, stressed the need for a "robust appellate mechanism" to effectively examine grievances raised by voters removed from the rolls.
During the hearing, the bench also pointed to what he described as procedural deviations in the West Bengal SIR exercise. They noted that the Election Commission had introduced a new category termed "logical discrepancy" in West Bengal, unlike other states.
"See in your final list you did not delete the 2002 list members. When the Bihar SIR was argued, the submissions of ECI were unequivocal that 2002 list members need not give any documents. Please see your written submissions in the Bihar case. You had said the 2002 electorate need not give documents," it said.
Justice Bagchi further noted that even judicial officers, given the scale and pace of adjudication, may have committed some errors during the process.
"If you go through 1,000 documents a day, if accuracy is 70 per cent then the activity should be rated as excellent. So margin of error will be there, and we need a robust appellate forum," he said.
Assembly elections in West Bengal will be held in two phases on April 23 and 29 and votes will be counted on May 4.
