Voters Cannot Wait for Decades: Need for Fast-Track Tribunals

The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has raised questions about how quickly complaints over excluded names can be addressed. Thousands of appeals are pending before tribunals, with the issue attracting particular attention in West Bengal. So far, 1,26,194 appeals have been decided, while 37,05,235 remain pending. At the present rate of disposal, the Opposition fears that it could take more than a decade to clear the backlog.

The CEC, however, amended the rules on Saturday. In the case of people who received SIR notices because they were “unmapped” or had logical discrepancies, Booth Level Officers (BLOs) will now visit their homes, collect the required documents and upload them on ECINet. They will normally not have to appear personally before the ERO/AERO. Hearings will be held only in exceptional cases and, preferably, online.

However, these decisions do not directly create a fast-track procedure for SIR appeals already pending before tribunals. At most, they could reduce the workload at the field and ERO levels, which may indirectly help speed up the overall process.

The crucial question, therefore, is whether Saturday’s changes themselves provide tribunals with a mechanism to dispose of the 37 lakh-plus pending appeals faster. The answer is no.

There is, however, an important distinction. The new doorstep document-collection and online-hearing arrangements could make future adjudication easier by ensuring that documentary evidence reaches the ERO without requiring every elector to appear physically. This could reduce the number of cases that eventually reach the appellate stage and make individual cases easier to process.