Kolkata: Just 72 hours to go before the Supreme Court’s first deadline to add voters cleared by SIR tribunals, Election Commission has yet to publish the name of a single person whose voting right has been reinstated and who can participate in the first phase of the Bengal polls on April 23.More than 27 lakh people found themselves excluded from the voters’ list after judicial adjudication, which was the last stage of the Special Intensive Revision of the electoral roll that began in Nov. Their fate as electors now depends on the verdict of 19 appellate tribunals set up on SC’s order.SC has ruled that deleted voters from the constituencies going to the polls in the first phase can exercise their franchise in the upcoming elections if their appeals are cleared by April 21. The deadline for the second phase, scheduled for April 29, is April 27.According to an EC source, the tribunals started work on April 13 and disposed of close to 200 cases by Thursday. But Bengal CEO Manoj Agarwal said he had no information on the number of cases disposed of or approved till Thursday. “Tribunal functioning is independent of EC and the CEO’s office. Until the dashboard is ready, I cannot say how many cases have been disposed of. EC is trying its best to launch the dashboard as soon as possible,” he said.All 19 tribunals, each headed by a retired judge, are functioning from SP Mookerjee National Institute of Water and Sanitation, Joka. The retired judges usually arrive at 10 am and work till 5-6 pm.“Cases are being disposed of regularly. While some logistical and infrastructural hitches remain, work is going on,” said a retired Calcutta High Court judge who heads one of the tribunals. When asked how to access the tribunals’ orders, he said, “Keep an eye on the EC website.”CEO Agarwal said the tribunals’ office has the required logistics and staff. “How many cases the tribunal judges can dispose of depends on the complexity of the cases, how many they can take up in a day, and other factors,” he said.When asked how the appellants will know whether their names have been cleared or not, Agarwal said, “Voters will be informed of the decision through their BLOs. There are other means as well.”The CEO also said the commission would develop a software to link the cases disposed of by the tribunals with the EC’s electoral list. “As names are approved by the tribunals, they will be added to the list. It is not a complicated task for EC. The commission developed a software to bridge the portal for judicial officers (who were involved in the adjudication of more than 60 lakh cases) with the electoral list in 2-3 days,” he said.(With inputs from Srishti Lakhotia in Kolkata)
