The Election Commission of India (ECI) announced the schedule for the West Bengal Assembly elections on Sunday evening, March 15, even as the fate of lakhs of voters in the state remains undecided, caught in the middle of an ongoing judicial adjudication process.
The timing has raised eyebrows. As of Friday night, March 13, judicial officers tasked with reviewing voters flagged under the “logical discrepancy” category had managed to clear only a quarter of the total cases referred to them. Of those reviewed, roughly one in three voters has been found excludable from the rolls.
60 lakh cases, only 25 per cent done
A little over 60 lakh voters were identified under the “logical discrepancy” category and referred for judicial review. By Friday night, adjudication had been completed for just 15 lakh of those cases, that is, 25 per cent of the total.
“Out of those 15 lakh cases, a little over 5 lakh have been identified as excludable, roughly 34 per cent of the cases reviewed so far,” said an insider from the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal.
That takes the total number of excluded voters in the state to 63 lakh, which includes the 59 lakh names already dropped from the draft voters’ list published in December last year under the “deceased,” “shifted,” “duplicate,” and “missing” categories.
732 judicial officers working round-the-clock
To speed up the process, a total of 732 judicial officers are currently on the job, including 100 each drawn from the neighbouring states of Jharkhand and Odisha. The CEO’s office insider described the pace of work as satisfactory, and added that the first supplementary list could be published as early as next week.
The final voters’ list for West Bengal, minus the 60 lakh cases still under judicial review, was published on February 28. As per the Supreme Court’s directions, supplementary lists will be released in phases as adjudication progresses.
Excluded voters can approach tribunal
Those who find themselves struck off the rolls are not without recourse. The Supreme Court has directed the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court to recommend former High Court chief justices and judges, preferably from the Calcutta HC or neighbouring states, to serve on Appellate Tribunals. Once recommended, the Election Commission will formally notify them, giving excluded voters a proper forum to contest their removal.
Last week, the full bench of the Election Commission, headed by Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, made its way to Kolkata. Speaking to reporters, Kumar expressed confidence that the adjudication process would be completed well before polling day, and that every eligible voter would get the opportunity to cast their vote.
How the judiciary was pulled in
The judicial adjudication process itself is the result of a Supreme Court intervention last month. A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipin Pancholi ordered the deployment of serving and retired judicial officers to oversee adjudication of claims and objections arising from the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal.
The top court noted an “unfortunate blame game of allegations and counter-allegations” that had laid bare a deep “trust deficit” between the West Bengal government and the Election Commission – two constitutional bodies whose standoff had, in the court’s words, stalled the SIR exercise at a critical stage.Thousands of voters who had received notices under the “logical discrepancy list” had already submitted documents supporting their case for inclusion. The CJI-led bench stressed that those claims deserved fair adjudication, and said that given the “extraordinary circumstances”, the judiciary had little option but to step in and ensure the revision exercise was seen through.
(With inputs from agencies)
