‘Over 37 lakh SIR appeals still pending in Bengal tribunals’

Why in the News

The Election Commission of India has informed the Supreme Court that 37,18,452 of a total 38,20,683 appeals arising out of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal are still pending before 19 Appellate Tribunals, with only 1,02,231 disposed of. The affidavit, covering appeals across 24 districts, was filed after the Court ordered the Commission to produce the data. Petitioners had complained that pendency and disposal rates were not in the public domain at all, and had relied on a Right to Information (RTI) reply from the election authorities to raise the issue. More than six months have passed since the Court constituted the Appellate Tribunals. The tension is that municipal elections in the State are approaching while the status of most appellants on the roll is undecided, and the Commission’s position is that the working of the tribunals is not its responsibility.

What is the Special Intensive Revision and what does the appeal route do?

1. What the revision is: A Special Intensive Revision is a house to house verification exercise in which the existing electoral roll is rebuilt rather than merely corrected, so every elector must establish eligibility afresh.
2. What it produces: It generates two classes of change, inclusions of new names and exclusions of existing ones, and both are open to challenge.
3. The appeal route in this case: Appeals arising from the West Bengal exercise lie to 19 Appellate Tribunals constituted by the Supreme Court, which sit alongside the ordinary appellate route to the District Magistrate and then the Chief Electoral Officer.
4. Why the appeal matters more than usual: A name kept off the roll when the roll is used is off the roll for that election, whatever the appeal later decides, so the timing of the decision carries the same weight as its content.

What do the pendency figures show?

1. The aggregate: 38,20,683 appeals were submitted regarding both inclusions and exclusions of voters during the revision.
2. What has been decided: Only 1,02,231 appeals have been disposed of, which is under three in every hundred filed.
3. Time elapsed: The tribunals have been in existence for over six months, so the backlog is not a start up delay.
4. Spread of the caseload: The affidavit, dated 16 September, carries annexures giving separate district by district statistics across all 24 districts.

What do the district figures reveal about disposal capacity?

1. Murshidabad: 7,47,921 appeals were filed and only 514 were decided.
2. Uttar Dinajpur: 3,03,155 appeals are pending, with 9,104 disposed of, which is the strongest district performance on the record.
3. Purba Bardhaman: Out of 2,80,029 appeals, only 131 had been decided by the tribunals.
4. What the spread means: Disposal is not tracking caseload anywhere, so the backlog reflects the capacity of the forum rather than the difficulty of particular districts.

Who actually filed these appeals?

1. Appeals by excluded voters: Only about seven lakh of the appeals were filed by voters who had been left off the roll and are seeking re inclusion.
2. Appeals seeking further exclusion: The remaining 31 lakh were filed either by the Commission itself or by other objectors seeking to exclude more people from the West Bengal electoral roll.
3. Why the split changes the problem: A single undifferentiated queue means an appeal that would restore a voter waits behind appeals that would remove others, so delay operates in one direction only.

What has the Court asked for, and what is the Commission’s position?

1. The direction on data: The Court directed the Commission to file an affidavit segregating the number of appeals filed by ousted voters seeking re inclusion from those filed by parties wanting more voters excluded.
2. The direction on process: The Bench also asked the Commission to consider a mechanism for updating and streamlining the progress of pending appeals before the tribunals.
3. The open question on priority: The Bench, headed by the Chief Justice of India, sought the breakup by nature of appeal before deciding whether appeals by disenfranchised voters seeking re inclusion should be prioritised.
4. The Commission’s distancing: The affidavit said the appellate mechanism and its accessibility fall within the standard operating procedures governing these fora and the authorities entrusted with their administration, and that the “feasibility, modalities and implementation” of any streamlining measure are best left to the Appellate Tribunal concerned rather than being made the subject of directions against the Commission.

Challenges to the SIR appellate process

1. Disposal capacity measured against the electoral calendar: A forum that clears under three per cent of its caseload in six months settles the roll by inaction rather than by decision. Eg. Municipal elections in West Bengal fall due while the overwhelming majority of appellants have no order either way.
   The Fix: Fix a statutory outer limit for deciding each appeal, running from the date of filing and enforceable before the roll’s final publication.
2. No public tracking of progress: Figures on filing and disposal reached the record only through litigation, so an appellant cannot see where their own matter stands. Eg. The district annexures were produced only after the Court ordered the Commission to file segregated data.
   The Fix: Publish a dashboard of appeals filed, decided and pending for each tribunal, updated at fixed intervals.
3. Diffused responsibility for tribunal performance: Where the Commission treats the tribunals’ working as a matter for the authorities administering them, no single body answers for the backlog. Eg. The appellate mechanism runs on standard operating procedures rather than on a statutory timeline with a named accountable officer.
   The Fix: Designate one nodal authority answerable for tribunal disposal rates, reporting to the Court at fixed intervals.
4. Undifferentiated queueing of opposite claims: Appeals that would restore a name and appeals that would remove one sit in the same line, so the voter already off the roll bears the whole cost of delay. Eg. Roughly four in five appeals on the record seek further exclusions rather than restoration.
   The Fix: Split the docket into two tracks and decide re inclusion appeals before the date of final publication of the roll.

Conclusion

The dispute has shifted away from the revision itself. What is now contested is whether the remedy built to correct the revision can operate at the speed the electoral calendar demands, because an appeal undecided when the roll is used produces the same result as an appeal dismissed. The Commission has placed responsibility for the tribunals’ working with the tribunals and their administering authorities, and the Court has not yet placed it anywhere else. The thing to watch is whether the Court orders re inclusion appeals to be heard first, which is the question it framed and left open.

Back2Basics: Representation of the People Act, 1950

1. What it governs: It deals with the allocation of seats in the Lok Sabha and State legislatures, delimitation of constituencies, qualifications of voters, and the preparation and revision of electoral rolls.
2. How it differs from the 1951 Act: The Representation of the People Act, 1951 governs the actual conduct of elections, qualifications and disqualifications of candidates, corrupt practices and election disputes, so rolls sit in the 1950 Act and polls in the 1951 Act.
3. Revision of rolls: Section 21 provides for the preparation and revision of electoral rolls, including a special revision of a constituency or part of one for reasons to be recorded.
4. The ordinary appeal route: Section 24 allows an appeal against an order of the Electoral Registration Officer to the District Magistrate, and from there to the Chief Electoral Officer of the State.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2026, GS2, 10] Is the right to vote a fundamental right? Discuss the position of the Election Commission of India while undertaking the revision of electoral rolls. Can it also examine the question of citizenship of voters?”