‘Happy and optimistic’: Supreme Court lauds Bengal SIR progress as 47 lakh voter objections cleared

The CJI said it is “absolutely not unusual” and “happens in every state”. He added that it cannot, however, be done in a hidden manner, and there is a right to raise objections.

The bench added that the Calcutta High Court Chief Justice’s letter dated March 31 also said that on March 20, the ECI notified the constitution of 19 Administrative Tribunals (AT) in Bengal. These Tribunals are headed by former Chief Justices/senior judges of high courts. Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee National Institution of Water and Sanitation, Kolkata, under the Union Jal Shakti Ministry, has been chosen as the venue for the sitting of the Tribunals, it pointed out.

The court rejected the state’s objections to the ‘training‘ being provided by the ECI to the presiding officers of the Tribunals. It recorded the ECI’s submission that the “Orientation/training to the members/presiding judges of the Appellate Tribunals will be undertaken today during the course of the day so that they are well conversed with the dealing of the appeals filed online/offline”.

Justice Bagchi said orally that the presiding officers “have vast experience in deciding matters. So you need not be bothered about ECI officials influencing or in any way interfering with their decisions”.

The Supreme Court also made it clear that the Tribunals should function in Kolkata.

Sharing remarks with excluded voters

On complaints that the reasons for exclusion or inclusion in the voters’ roll are not provided to applicants, the apex court noted that the ECI software has a field to record the reasons and said this may be provided to the Tribunals.

Justice Bagchi told Senior Advocate D S Naidu, who appeared for the ECI, orally, “I was not aware earlier that the architecture of the software prepared for your client also has a field where remarks or reasons are given, whether the rejection or acceptance on the ground of logical discrepancy is justified or not. These remarks or reasons are therefore available in the software itself.”

“So, if it is possible, whenever a person approaches for an appeal, he may be supplied with the reasons or arrangements be made that whenever an appeal is filed, the AT will provide the reasons to the party concerned…”

The bench initially expressed the view that the ATs should not entertain fresh/new documents which were never the subject matter of adjudication by the judicial officers. But the petitioners said that if anyone wants to rely on a scheduled document, that should be considered.

Naidu said that it “could open a Pandora’s box. They could have filed those documents when they had the opportunity; the whole process gets derailed.”

The bench, however, decided that it is best left to the Tribunals and added that they entertain fresh documents only after verifying their genuineness.