KOLKATA: Retired Calcutta High Court judge Justice Indrajit Chatterjee has sought to resign from a tribunal hearing appeals related to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal, citing the long daily commute between his Salt Lake residence and the tribunal centre in Joka, 27 km away.
Justice Indrajit Chatterjee has written a letter to the Chief Justice of the High Court expressing his desire to resign from the tribunal.
Following a directive from the Supreme Court, the High Court had set up 19 appellate tribunals across the state to dispose of appeals involving around 27 lakh adjudicated voters. Justice Chatterjee presides over the tribunal dealing with Murshidabad district.
For as long as he has worked, he could hear only about 10 appeals a day. At this rate, it would take around 145 years to dispose of all the remaining 5.25 lakh cases if he worked 365 days a year.
Among the appeals Justice Chatterjee has adjudicated, 82.35 per cent were found to involve genuine voters.
According to media reports, he has decided 425 appeals so far. The names of 350 of these appellants have been restored to the electoral rolls, while the remaining 75 have been deleted.
In his letter, Justice Chatterjee has proposed that the Chief Justice set up a tribunal office close to his Salt Lake residence. He is also willing to perform his tribunal-related duties from home; otherwise, the letter reportedly states, it would not be possible for him to manage the responsibility assigned to him in the exercise.
Murshidabad, which has one of the highest Muslim populations in the state at around 70 per cent, recorded the highest number of deletions under the “logical discrepancy” category. The district has 22 Assembly seats and three Lok Sabha constituencies.
It may also be recalled that former Chief Justice T S Sivagnanam had resigned from the tribunal as well.
On September 18, the Election Commission of India (ECI) told the Supreme Court that more than 37 lakh appeals against the deletion or inclusion of names in Bengal's electoral rolls under the SIR remained pending.
The apex court-appointed tribunals had disposed of only about 1.02 lakh of the 38.20 lakh appeals filed so far, the national poll panel said in its response affidavit.
The affidavit, however, did not provide a break-up of the appeals filed by electors whose names were deleted and those filed against the inclusion of names in the electoral rolls.
On July 17, a bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana entertained a plea filed by Prasenjit Bose, chairperson of the SIR committee of the Congress's Bengal unit, on the issue.
The poll panel, in its affidavit, said 38,20,683 appeals had been filed against orders relating to the SIR of electoral rolls.
Of these, 1,02,231 appeals had been disposed of, leaving 37,18,452 pending, it added.
