By Dr. Gyan Pathak
By modifying its own order on April 1, 2026, to allow new documents to be submitted before the Tribunals established to hear appeal against deletion of names from the Final Electoral Roll of West Bengal, the Supreme Court of India has brought a new hope to the people whose names have been deleted under Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process, though it has come too late, preventing many citizens in participating in the election, which is just a violation of their constitutional right, and failure of the Election Commission of India (ECI) in conducting free and fair election.
Election to the Legislative Assembly of West Bengal, was announced on March 15, 2026, though the Final Electoral Roll published on February 28 was actually not final. Notification for the first phase of election was issued on March 30, and last date for filing nomination is April 6. According to law, the electoral roll is frozen on the last date of nomination. Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court has informed the Supreme Court Bench hearing a bunch of petitions in this regard that the judicial officers have disposed of nearly 47 lakh out of 60 lakh claims under adjudication, have been deciding nearly 2 lakh objections daily, and will clear the pending claims by April 7.
It should be noted that April 7 is the date of scrutiny of nomination for the first phase of election. There is no clarity over total number of deletions, though CM of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee has said that names of 1.2 crore voters have been deleted. The deleted voters are not able to participate in the election, because they got no time for appeal against deletion, because the 19 Appellate Tribunals, headed by former High Court Chief Justices or Justices, have only been notified by the order of the Supreme Court Bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul Pancholi, and they will be operational soon.
Finding the ECI and the West Bengal Government having distrust against each other, the Supreme Court Bench had order deployment of judicial officers from West Bengal and neighbouring states Jharkhand and Odisha for adjudication work on about 60 lakh names that were put under logical discrepancy list. Over 730 judges were deployed, and the work is still not complete.
The Appellate Tribunals were not supposed to accept any new document, other than which were notified by the ECI and as ordered by the Supreme Court, from the voters whose names were deleted from the electoral roll. Additionally, the Tribunals had also not access to the reasons record by the adjudicating officers for deletion of names or acceptance. Now the Supreme Court have modified its order and not only allowed Tribunals to accept submission of new documents, but also has said that they must have access to the reasons recorded by the adjudicating officers. Both the direction has brought a great hope to the people whose names are deleted from the Final Electoral Roll and the supplementary electoral rolls.
The Supreme Court had initially ordered that the Appellate Tribunals should not entertain fresh or new documents which were not submitted before the adjudicating officers. When the petitioners in the case raised serious concern about its potential adverse impact on the fate of the citizens and their voting rights, the Bench has modified its order as “The Appellate Tribunal will not entertain fresh documents without verifying the genuineness of such documents.”
The court also observed that the Tribunals must have access to the reasons recorded by adjudicating officers for their decisions. Justice Bagchi observed, “The architecture of the software provides for a field for remarks, which are reasons given by the officers concerned while deciding whether the logical discrepancy was justified and therefore deletion was warranted or it was not justified and therefore inclusion is directed. In such cases, whenever an appeal is field by an aggrieved person, be it the representative of the ECI who feels that the inclusion is unjustified or be it the person who has been excluded, the reason shall be supplied to the person concerned.”
As for the incorrect inclusion in or exclusion from the electoral roll, Justice Bagchi said that they can be corrected by the Tribunals, and said, “Even if a person is excluded today, and is unable to vote in this particular election, but that exclusion appears to be unjustified to a Tribunal headed by a former Chief Justice, we see no reason why the decision can be altered and he can be included. And likewise, a person incorrectly included, and votes in this election, and your representative makes a report to the Tribunal, we see no reason why the entire cleaning exercise taken by you should not been taken to its logical conclusion.”
Petitioners also raised concern about bulk registration of new voters, on which the Bench said that voters included after the qualifying date set by the ECI cannot claim the right to vote. They Bench also said that the petitioners should bring to notice any specific difficulties to the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court who has been entrusted with this matter.
Supreme Court’s modification of its order gives much needed relief, but the question of free and fair election remains unanswered since the very electoral roll on which these rests is not final and the persons whose names have been deleted are not given time to appeal before the election of the Legislative Assembly of West Bengal. (IPA Service)
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