The Supreme Court on Friday indicated that it would explore the possibility of an early hearing on prioritising appeals filed by voters deleted from West Bengal’s electoral rolls during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), ahead of the upcoming municipal elections in Kolkata and Howrah. The plea was mentioned before the bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana.

During the mentioning, Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan urged the Court to take up the issue on an urgent basis, submitting that voters had already missed the recent by-elections and could be deprived of the opportunity to vote in the municipal elections if their appeals remained undecided.

“93% of those appeals have been allowed,” he submitted. He said that the appeals of voters seeking inclusion in the electoral rolls should be prioritised, particularly those residing in areas where municipal elections are scheduled. He suggested that appeals seeking deletion of voters’ names could be taken up later, while appeals seeking inclusion could be given priority. Among the latter, cases concerning areas where elections are due could be further prioritised.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan pointed out that the tribunals had disposed of around 1.2 lakh appeals in six months, while approximately 1.7 lakh appeals concerning the two municipal areas were said to be pending. He submitted that the tribunals would need sufficient time to decide the appeals before the election notification process.

Mr Sankaranarayanan requested that the matter be listed on October 16, stating that an early hearing would help the tribunals get sufficient time to decide the pending appeals before the municipal elections.

The Bench acknowledged the concern that any delay would leave the tribunals with less time to decide the pending appeals and said it would check with the Registry whether the matter could be listed on October 16.