Stories
Tribunal Judges Flag Major EC Portal Glitches in Bengal SIR Process
- •Judges of more than a dozen appellate tribunals in West Bengal have flagged critical gaps in the Election Commission digital infrastructure for handling SIR appeals.
- •The tribunal judges stated that the EC portal lacks mechanisms to directly serve notices, conduct virtual hearings, or restore deleted voter names.
- •Concerns were also raised about the lack of a proper system to digitise and track physical appeals submitted to district authorities.
- •The 19 tribunals were established following Supreme Court directions to address appeals regarding the 27.16 lakh electors whose names were deleted.
Key Questions Answered
Appellate tribunal judges flagged that the Election Commission portal lacks mechanisms to directly serve notices, upload additional documents, conduct virtual hearings, or restore voter names after an appeal is decided. Appellants also cannot download certified copies of tribunal orders.
As of September 10, the ECI informed the Supreme Court that 38.31 lakh appeals had been filed, with 22.21 lakh filed by deleted voters seeking inclusion and 16.10 lakh challenging inclusions, while only 1.26 lakh appeals had been disposed of.
Nineteen single-member appellate tribunals comprising retired High Court judges were created following Supreme Court directions to provide a legal remedy for the 27.16 lakh electors whose names were ultimately deleted after judicial officers examined voters flagged for logical discrepancies or as unmapped during the SIR exercise.
