Voters deleted during SIR higher than winning-margin: TMC tells SC
What's the story
The number of voters deleted during the West Bengal Special Intensive Revision (SIR) was more than the vote difference between a winning Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate and a losing Trinamool Congress (TMC) candidate, senior Advocate Kalyan Banerjee argued before the Supreme Court on Monday. The case was heard by a bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi.
Election impact
Jangipara constituency winning candidate
Banerjee highlighted the case of the Jangipara constituency, where BJP's Prasenjit Bag won against TMC's Snehasis Chakraborty by a margin of 862 votes. He noted that over 5,000 voters were deleted during the SIR process, which is much higher than this winning margin. "My candidate lost by 862 votes, but 5,550 names were deleted. This Court had indicated that if the vote difference is less than deletion of names, then this court will look into it," Banerjee said.
Judge
File separate plea: SC
The court, however, indicated that a separate application would have to be submitted to raise problems with the election results. "Whatever you want to say about, as you said, with regard to results which may have materially affected because of the deletions which are under adjudication, that requires an independent interlocutory application (IA) to be taken out," said Justice Bagchi.
Judicial position
Supreme Court's earlier stand on voter deletions
The Supreme Court had earlier indicated that it would not interfere with election results unless there was an "enormous amount of voters excluded." "If 10% of electorate does not vote and winning margin is more than 10%...what will happen? Suppose margin is 2% and 15% 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," Justice Bagchi said.
Tribunal proceedings
Very few candidates got relief from appellate tribunals
The court had also refused to stay the SIR exercise but ordered appellate tribunals to hear challenges. The establishment of appellate tribunals, manned by retired judges, was ordered to hear challenges to voter deletions. However, only a few people got relief from these tribunals before the polls. One such case was Congress candidate Motab Shaikh's inclusion in electoral rolls, which was cleared by Justice TS Sivagnanam of the appellate tribunal. Shaikh eventually won from Farakka constituency against BJP's Sudhir Chowdhury.
Relief timeline
Concerns over lengthy process to get relief
Senior Advocate Menaka Guruswamy expressed concerns that it could take years for voters to get relief after their names were deleted. She said, "There is a feeling that appellate tribunals will now take four years!" Representing the Election Commission of India (ECI), Senior Advocate Dama Seshadri Naidu said election petitions would have to be filed on such issues. The court then went on to clarify that any concerns about election results must be raised through separate applications.