Supreme Court judge Joymalya Bagchi on Monday pointed at a few concerns resulting from the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in West Bengal, highlighting the requirement for a “robust appellate mechanism” to address appeals from individuals whose names have been deleted from the electoral rolls.
Two “deviations” from the SIR process in other states was observed in West Bengal by Bagchi. He mentioned that the Election Commission of India (ECI) introduced the new category of “logical discrepancy” in West Bengal and it revised its position for the state, as in Bihar individuals who had been mapped in the 2002 electoral rolls had not been required to upload documents.
Bagchi commented on the “exclusion” resulting from the SIR process. He added that in places where the winning margin in the previous election is less than the percentage of exclusion, it may cause concern.
Deviated from Bihar norm: SC
The judge observed that the ECI had deviated from its stand in the Bihar SIR that voters mapped in the 2002 roll need not produce documents.
“If you see the original SIR notice, it talks of the benchmark as the 2002 electoral roll. So the SIR does not touch a person who is in the 2002 roll. The 2002 roll is not touched. What is touched (is) who are relating themselves to the 2002 roll. (The) 2002 roll was the benchmark, why because the last intensive revisions was then….When the Bihar SIR was argued, and we understand your SIR (in Bengal) is a facsimile of the Bihar, the submissions from ECI was unequivocal that the person in the 2002 electoral roll does not need give any document,” said Bagchi.
Deletion vs winning margin
”If 10 per cent of electorate does not vote and winning margin is more than 10 per cent…what will happen? Suppose margin is 2 per cent and 15 per cent of electorate who are mapped could not vote, then maybe, we are not expressing any opinion, but we would definitely have to apply our minds. Please keep this in mind that the concern of a vigilant voter whose name correctly or incorrectly is not in the list is not in our minds,” observed Bagchi.
“The points flagged by the apex court bench today have already been repeatedly flagged by many from the civil society, with little response from the authorities so far,” said a poll specialist
Errors possible due to less time at hand: SC
The judge said that judicial officials conducting SIR adjudication could not be expected to function with 100 per cent accuracy. He said that when someone is dealing with more than a thousand documents a day with very little time, even an accuracy of 70 per cent should be considered “excellent”. What is needed in the circumstances, Bagchi stressed, was “a robust appellate mechanism”.
About 27 lakh voters have been deleted from West Bengal in the SIR process out of around 60 lakhs people for “logical discrepancy”’. “A 30 per cent error, too, as Justice Bagchi mentioned, means about 18 lakh people; and can qualitatively change the result in many close elections,” observed a senior political leader from Trinamul Congress (TMC), who is contesting the election. The state has the highest percentage of deleted voters after Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat.
“This is exactly the point we have been making. What is the reason for such a rush to push the process into the possibility of errors? They could have easily carried out the SIR exercise after the Assembly election, or could have started earlier,” said a senior Left leader. A senior BJP leader, when asked, put the onus of the exercise on the ECI.
The Supreme Court bench of the Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Bagchi was hearing a writ petition filed by 13 petitioners, whose appeals against their deletions from the electoral rolls are pending before the Appellate Tribunals. The bench dismissed the petition. The petitioners have the right to appeal.