NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday, while hearing a batch of petitions challenging the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal, permitted appellate tribunals to consider fresh documents in electoral roll disputes, but only after verifying their authenticity.
In his reply, the chief justice of the Calcutta High Court submitted to the Supreme Court that around 47 lakh out of the 60 lakh objections in the ongoing SIR of electoral rolls in West Bengal have been disposed of till March 31.
A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi said they have received a letter from the chief justice of the HC on Tuesday. “We are quite happy and very optimistic about the facts and figures. Let us allow tribunals to function and deal with exclusions or inclusion in the voters’ list. Rival parties will claim there should be 100% inclusion or exclusion,” the top court said and fixed the matter for further hearing to April 6.
The chief justice also informed the Supreme Court that by April 7, all the respective objections will be decided.
19 appellate panels to have access to records
In its order, the SC noted that the 19 appellate tribunals notified and set up by the ECI in the state for final adjudication of applicants will have full access to the records and materials placed before the original adjudicating authorities (judicial officers) to effectively decide the finality of appeals concerning inclusion or exclusion from electoral rolls.
The court held that the appellate tribunals must examine the records, consider the reasons given by judicial officers, hear the parties and pass reasoned orders.