Judge who quit Bengal SIR tribunal cleared more voters than EC added to rolls
Mismatch: Justice Sivagnanam, one of 19 tribunals, cleared 1,717 appeals; EC added only 1,607 names to rolls; 27.16 lakh couldn't vote
Justice T S Sivagnanam quit
the tribunal Thursday A DAY before polling ended in West Bengal, data from the office of the Chief Electoral Officer showed that as many as 1,607 appeals by people whose names were deleted from the voter list, as part of the controversial SIR exercise, had been approved by the Appellate Tribunals and added back to the electoral roll. The Indian Express has, however, learnt that just one of the 19 tribunals headed by Justice (Retd) TS Sivagnanam had cleared as many as 1,717 appeals between April 5 and April 27. Since there are 18 more tribunals, there are now questions about the number of appeals cleared by them, and how many more persons could have been added to the electoral rolls in time to cast their votes.
The Indian Express reported Friday that Justice Sivagnanam resigned from the tribunal on Thursday. When contacted by The Indian Express, he said he had done so due to personal reasons.
The Election Commission did not respond to a request for comment. West Bengal CEO Manoj Agarwal could not be reached for comment.
It is learnt that Justice Sivagnanam, who had originally been assigned some constituencies of North 24 Parganas and Kolkata as per the EC’s March 20 notification, disposed of 1,777 appeals in total. Of these, it is learnt he approved all 1,717 appeals filed by citizens against deletion. He rejected 60 appeals filed by the EC against inclusions in Birbhum district, the jurisdiction of which had been given to him when the Supreme Court asked him to give out-of-turn hearings to some family members of artist Nandalal Bose who had also appealed against their deletion. Justice Sivagnanam could not be reached for comment.
On orders of the Supreme Court, Justice Sivagnanam had given an out-of-turn hearing to Congress candidate from Farakka Motab Shaikh, whose name had also been deleted in adjudication. The tribunal found that Shaikh had a passport and other relevant documents to establish his eligibility and identity. In its order, the tribunal of Justice Sivagnanam had noted: “The above records appear to have not been taken note of during the adjudication process.” Shaikh was added back to the rolls, allowing him to file his nomination as a candidate. He eventually won the election from Farakka.
In an unprecedented step, the Supreme Court had in February ordered judicial officers, of the rank of district judge and additional district judge, to decide on the eligibility of electors in Bengal, after noting there was a trust deficit between the Election Commission of India and the state government.
Over 700 judicial officers considered 60.06 lakh electors identified by the EC using a centralised algorithm to flag “logical discrepancies”. They found 27.16 lakh names ineligible, deleting them from the rolls just days before the polls. On orders of the court and recommendations of Calcutta High Court Chief Justice Sujoy Paul, the Election Commission on March 20 notified 19 appellate tribunals comprising retired judges of the High Court, including former Chief Justice Sivagnanam, to consider appeals against the decisions of judicial officers.
Invoking its powers under Article 142, the Supreme Court then ordered the EC to publish supplementary lists to allow those cleared by the tribunals till April 21 for the first phase of polls on April 23, and April 27 for the second phase on April 29 to vote.
A day before the first phase of polls, West Bengal CEO Manoj Agarwal told The Indian Express the supplementary lists published that day had 139 names. Then, a day before the second phase, data from the CEO office showed that 1,468 names had been added back to the rolls. The remaining ‘deleted’ 27.16 lakh electors could not vote.
The Supreme Court had noted in its order on April 13 that 34 lakh appeals had been filed till then against the exclusions and inclusions during adjudication.
Share
