No decision yet on rollout of voter appeal tribunals in Bengal: CEO Manoj Agarwal

Kolkata: The operationalisation of tribunals to hear appeals from voters whose names were missing from the electoral rolls during the SIR exercise in West Bengal is yet to be finalised, a senior official said on Saturday.

"The Supreme Court has directed that those whose names are deleted will have the option to approach tribunals. However, no final decision has been taken yet on when and where these tribunals will start functioning," Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Agarwal told reporters on Friday.

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He said the state government has proposed certain locations for setting up the tribunals, while the Calcutta High Court has suggested the Judicial Academy at New Town as a possible venue.

"The West Bengal government has identified spaces in every district for the tribunals. Now, the high court will make a decision," Agarwal said.

"After the HC's decision, it will be up to the state government to hand over the office premises. Once these processes are completed, the tribunals will start functioning to address voters' grievances," he added.

Agarwal, who attended a meeting at the Calcutta High Court on Thursday, said the software required for voters to challenge adjudication rulings is ready and "would be functional very soon, by this week or early next week."

On the absence of booth-wise lists indicating deletions and inclusions, a Deputy CEO said voters can individually verify their status on the Election Commission portal.

Officials said names flagged during the verification process have been placed under the "under adjudication" category pending further examination. These cases include suspected duplication, migration, or lack of proper documentation.

The EC on Friday night published the second supplementary list under the SIR of electoral rolls in West Bengal.

The poll panel, however, did not provide details on the total number of deletions or inclusions in the list.

"The second list has been published. We cannot divulge anything more," an EC official said.

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Booth-wise lists were made available on the EC website around 11.30 pm, but the web pages containing data about deletions or inclusions could not be accessed due to "technical glitches".

The Commission had released the first supplementary list of 'Under Adjudication' voters on Monday, but remained tight-lipped on the number of deletions or the precise figure of cases disposed of on that list, drawing criticism from various quarters.

A total of 58 lakh names were deleted following the enumeration phase of the Special Intensive Revision exercise, slashing the state's eligible electors from the initial 7.66 crore to 7.08 crore on grounds of death, migration, duplication and untraceability.

The post-SIR rolls published on February 28 further reduced the number of valid voters to just over 7.04 crore, including over 60 lakh names under judicial scrutiny.

Polling for the 294-member West Bengal assembly will be held on April 23 and 29, with counting scheduled for May 4.