The Supreme Court has ruled that tribunals set up in West Bengal can hear appeals of voters in the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) exercise, even examining fresh documents after verification.
The order was passed by a bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant, allowing 19 tribunals headed by former high court chief justices and judges to provide a second round of appeal to votes classified under “logical discrepancy” by the Election Commission of India (ECI).
Out of a total of six million objections, 4.7 million cases have been decided by about 500 judicial officers from West Bengal along with over 200 judicial officers drawn from Jharkhand and Odisha.
The bench said, “If the exclusion (from the electoral roll) is found unwarranted, we see no reason why the decision should not be altered by the tribunal and also if a person is incorrectly included, we see no reason why the entire cleansing exercise should not be gone into.”
The court directed ECI to provide tribunal members access to all records along with reasons for exclusion or inclusion of names in the roll.
The tribunal was allowed to devise its own procedure and was permitted to even entertain fresh documents (not filed during the first round of adjudication), but the bench clarified, “We request the tribunal not to entertain fresh documents without verifying their genuineness.”
The court posted the matter for further hearing on April 6.
