File separate pleas on SIR’s impact on West Bengal polls: SC to TMC

THe sublime margaret court on mon asked the Trinamool united states congress (TMC) to register separate applications over claims that the outcome of the recent West Bengal assembly elections was materially affected by voter deletions carried out during the special intensive revision (SIR) exercise, even as the Election Commission of India (ECI) maintained that any challenge to poll results could only be pursued through election petitions by defeated candidates.A bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi was hearing a batch of pleas challenging the SIR exercise in West Bengal when senior advocate and TMC MP Kalyan Bandhopadhyay argued that in at least 31 constituencies won by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the BJP’s margin of victory was lower than the number of voters deleted from electoral rolls and whose appeals remain pending before appellate tribunals.The submission brought before the court, for the first time after the elections, raises allegation of a linkage between the controversial voter deletion exercise and the electoral outcome in specific constituencies. To be sure, HT’s own analysis shows that there is no such correlation.“Whatever you want to say about results...which may have materially affected because of deletions which are under adjudication...that requires an independent IA (interlocutory application),” responded the bench, asking the TMC to place complete details on record through separate applications.Representing ECI, senior advocate DS Naidu argued that the proper legal remedy against an election result was an election petition filed under election law by a losing candidate and not proceedings in the pending writ petitions challenging the SIR process.The court said ECI’s objections would be considered once the fresh applications are filed.Bandhopadhyay, representing some TMC leaders in the court, pointed to one constituency where a TMC candidate lost by just 862 votes while over 5,400 voters had been deleted under the SIR adjudication process. He further submitted that across the state, the overall vote gap between the BJP and the TMC stood at nearly 3.2 million votes whereas approximately 3.5 million appeals against voter deletions were still pending before appellate tribunals.Referring to an earlier hearing held before the elections, the senior counsel relied on the court’s previous observation that the court may have to “apply its mind” if the number of excluded voters exceeded the victory margin.During the April 13 hearing, the bench had remarked: “If 10 % does not vote and winning margin is more than 10% then...if it’s less than 5% then we have to apply our mind.”The court had at that stage refused to stay the SIR exercise but directed the setting up of appellate tribunals, comprising former chief justices and judges of high courts, to hear challenges to deletions.The SIR exercise undertaken by the ECI in West Bengal became one of the most contentious electoral revision exercises in recent years. On April 10, ECI announced deletion of nearly 9 million from electoral rolls in the state. Out of these, around2.7 million deletions fell under the “logical discrepancy” category -- a classification introduced specifically for West Bengal and absent in the Bihar SIR exercise conducted earlier.Under this category, voters were flagged on grounds such as mismatched names, discrepancies in age gaps with parents or grandparents and inconsistencies relating to family details.On Monday, senior advocate Menaka Guruswamy, appearing for TMC leaders, also highlighted the continuing pendency before appellate tribunals and warned that at the current pace, it could take nearly four years for all appeals to be decided.The bench responded that expeditious disposal of pending appeals would remain a priority for the court.Bandhopadhyay also informed the bench that former high court chief justice TS Sivagnanam, who had been functioning as a member of the appellate tribunal mechanism, had resigned after the elections.“What can we do? We can’t compel anyone,” the CJI remarked.The BJP swept the assembly elections, ending the TMC’s 15-year rule in the state, with Suvendu Adhikari taking oath as chief minister last week.The matter was adjourned after the bench indicated that it would examine the effect of voter deletions on electoral outcomes once proper applications containing constituency-wise details are placed before it.