On Bengal voter list, Supreme Court asks for break up of appeals before Tribunals

The bench, which included Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana, sought to know what consequential steps were being taken for updating the electoral rolls pursuant to the orders allowing appeals.

A reply under RTI Act shows that of ‘about 83,000’ appeals decided by tribunals, 75,443 restored in electoral rolls, petitioners told court. (File Photo)

Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for some of the petitioners, told the court that the RTI reply given to a Member of Parliament “makes absolutely appalling reading”.

“This is the appellate tribunal report as on August 7. The total number of appeals submitted is 38,10,000. So far, about 83,000 or so are decisions which are finally (made). This may be about 2 per cent of the total, but see the consequence. Just see the decision taken. Included in e-roll: 75,443,” he said.

“We have to express our gratitude to the appellate tribunals Your Lordship set up because were it not for that setting up of tribunals, all these people would have been disenfranchised, lost their chance to vote in the legislative assembly elections, would have remained excluded and then other proceedings would have been initiated against them. 75,443 have come in. In Jalpaiguri, 665 have been included in e-roll as a consequence of the appeal, 0 excluded,” he said.

Pointing out that a huge chunk of the appeals were challenging the inclusion of names in the voter list, Sankaranarayanan urged the bench to direct the tribunals to prioritise the cases of those excluded.

“Of the total number of appeals which have been filed, only 7 lakh appeals have been filed by individuals who have been removed from the rolls. The remaining 31 lakh appeals have been filed either by the Election Commission themselves or objectors to inclusions. This lion’s share of people who want people to be disenfranchised cannot burden this tribunal, definitely not in priority,” he said.

“Now that you have elections coming up for the municipal corporation and panchayat, let the tribunals first prioritise those who have been excluded. Looking at the track record of over 90% of them being directed to be included eventually, let them also not lose out on this opportunity that they will have to vote in the next election,” he said.

Justice Bagchi said, “So a large chunk of appeals are for removal from the rolls.”

“Yes, 31 lakh are for removal from rolls. We didn’t know this. It is so shocking that you would do this,” Sankaranarayanan said.

Justice Bagchi told Senior Advocate D S Naidu who appeared for the Election Commission: “Get your data, the nature of the appeals that are filed, whether it is for inclusion or for exclusion. And then we will take a call as to whether we prioritise the exclusion and then inclusion because an inclusion is not affecting an individual right, but an exclusion is denuding a voting right. It will require some prioritisation. Nonetheless, it will bring down the burden (on the tribunals) to some extent.”

CJI Kant said, “Some of the appeals could be cross-appeals also. Then one order impacts both appeals.”

Naidu said that since the court last heard the matter, “EC officials met the tribunal twice. And again we are meeting. Because to expedite the process, they have suggested some tweaking of (procedure).” He said the court may have to provide some additional tribunals to ease the burden “because when it comes to the pace… we can’t have any say in that”.

Senior Advocate Kalyan Bandyopadhyay, appearing for a Trinamool Congress member, said an application had been filed pointing out that in 31 constituencies, BJP’s winning margin against the TMC in the recent Assembly polls was less than the number of deleted votes.

Illustrating his submission, he said that in one constituency, the margin of loss was 401, and the deletions were 8,785. In another constituency, the candidate lost by 15,000 votes and the deletion was 27,000, he said.

The CJI asked, “You may have filed an application, but can the court direct fresh elections like this?”

Justice Bagchi sought to know “how many of these deleted persons have filed appeal”.

“If the deletion is accepted by the person concerned, then any impact on the result of the election, claiming that the deletion was illegal becomes academic. So what we need to see is let us say 100 people have been deleted. The winning margin is 50 and the number of deleted persons of that constituency filing appeal is 60 or 70. Then the challenge to deletion becomes substantial,” he said.

The court, he said, is more deeply concerned with the dealing of the deletion appeals by the tribunals.

Bandyopadhyay said the Commission is not putting out the information in public domain. “I am not getting any statistics from anywhere.”

The “municipal election is coming, they will not be able to cast votes. Then the panchayat election is coming next year, so they won’t be able to cast votes. Then Lok Sabha polls in 2029,” he said.

The CJI said, “We are with you on this. At least before Lok Sabha elections, everything must be decided.”

Bandyopadhyay urged the court to seek a report from the ECI on the number of appeals filed in the 31 constituencies.

The CJI said, “We are concerned with all the pending appeals, not just in these 31… They need to be adjudicated in a time-bound manner. Last time also, we said, if need be, we will put in place more tribunals.”