During the mention before the Supreme Court, Senior Advocate Dr Menaka Guruswamy sought urgent relief after alleging that several electors in West Bengal had been deleted from the electoral rolls despite having previously voted and submitted valid documents.
Dr Menaka submitted that the deletion had occurred during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process and that affected voters had been left without an effective appellate remedy.
It was further argued that although documents had been submitted, they were allegedly not accepted by the authorities, and the affected individuals had not even been furnished with the orders passed by the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO), thereby preventing them from filing an appeal.
“No right to appeal, my Lords, because the ERO’s order is not available… This is contrary to your Lordships’ orders in the Bihar SIR matter.”
The Bench responded by noting that the petitioners still retained the right to seek judicial redress. However, the Court also expressed reservations about the existing appellate framework under the electoral scheme, where appeals lie before administrative authorities.
“In the scheme of things, where the Collector or Additional Collector is the appellate authority, that we can’t allow,” the Bench remarked.
Dr Menaka clarified that the plea was not seeking substantive relief at this stage but only requested that the matter be tagged with similar cases scheduled to be heard the following day.
In a separate mentioning, another counsel sought urgent listing of a matter relating to applicants under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), arguing that their applications had not been processed, which prevented them from participating in the SIR process.
Responding to the series of mentions relating to West Bengal, the Chief Justice lightly remarked, “Anything left in the Supreme Court other than West Bengal?
The Bench, however, asked the counsel to provide the case number and indicated that the matter could be listed along with related proceedings.
“This week… give the number of that matter and it will be listed along with the other matters,” the Court indicated.