Unclear court hearing process: SIR leaves West Bengal voters in limbo

KOLKATA: Not a single applicant has moved the Appellate Tribunal against deletion of SIR and their lawyers seem unclear about the procedure to be followed if they want to be added back to the electoral roll.Aloke Basu, a resident of Haridevpur, went to the Dr Syama Prasad Mookherjee National Institute of Water and Sanitation in Chokha for two consecutive days – Sunday and Monday – hoping that the court would take up his case as his surname was wrongly recorded as ‘Bose’, leading to its deletion. But so far, there’s no news of a hearing.

“I’ve contacted my BLO and he doesn’t know. Neighbors who were removed – quite a few – are contacting us to see if they will be asked for a hearing. We don’t know if our voices will be heard or if our fate will depend on the same ridiculous logic that led to our removal in the first place,” Basu said.Lawyer Raghunath Chakraborty, who has been providing extensive legal advice to deleted voters in Howrah, said: “They could have set up some website where they could have listed the dates for hearings.” Lawyers such as Chakraborty and advocate Saikat Thakurata have been helping people from economically weaker backgrounds file appeals and representing them pro bono.According to Chief Justice Sujoy Paul’s letter to the SC on Monday, while 16 courts started functioning from Monday, deletion voters and their lawyers are still confused about how they are called for hearings and where they can check the orders passed by these courts.During the SC hearing on April 6, CJI Surya Kant, while referring to CJ Paul’s letter, pointed out that a retired chief judge had raised the issue regarding the process of providing “personal hearing” to the affected parties.“It is not clear yet how the applicant will be summoned. Whether it is a personal hearing or the tribunal will simply examine the documents that have been submitted. Interestingly, the applicant now also knows what documents will be provided to the tribunal,” Calcutta High Court lawyer Firdous Samim said.He has experience of representing two candidates in the Congress and AJUP elections, namely Motab Shaikh from Farakka and Kechhabuddin Sekh from Kaliganj.In Motab’s case, Samim personally appeared at Bichar Bhawan where documents were provided and Motab’s name was subsequently restored, enabling him to contest as a candidate. Citing the SC order dated September 8, 2025, former Justice TS Sivagnanam stated that Aadhar card can be accepted as a supporting document. While it is not proof of citizenship, it is “one of the documents enumerated for the purpose of establishing a person’s identity.”Meanwhile, in Kechhabuddin’s case, Samim was given a link to a conference call where he presented the client’s case. Kechapudin also attended the hearing. Eventually, his name was also sought to be included as it was found that the documents provided clearly showed that he was a permanent resident of Gobindapur village in Nadia Hat. Samim suggested that an online platform for uploading orders could be set up as lawyers prioritized Motab’s case even in the petition filed with South Carolina on Monday. Although CJ Sujoy Paul formed a three-member panel comprising former CJ TS Sivagnanam, Justice Pradipta Roy and Justice Pranab Kumar Deb after the SC ordered the formation of the SOP on April 7, the deleted voters are still confused as to how they will be summoned for the hearing. All they have now is a “grievance number” sent via text message to their registered mobile phone.