Deletion of names from the electoral roll does not lead to loss of citizenship, the Supreme Court said on Friday, reiterating that its recent ruling upholding the Special Intensive Review (SIR) in Bihar places a similar duty on the Election Commission of India (ECI) to refer deleted voters to the Center for adjudication of their legal status.
A bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant said: “Our ruling (on Bihar Sir) is clear. The Election Commission of India has complete control over the electoral roll. However, this does not lead to loss of citizenship per se. They have a similar duty to refer it to the Central Government Administration Ministry for adjudication of citizenship status.”
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The bench made this observation while issuing notice on a petition seeking a mechanism to ensure early disposal of over three million appeals filed by West Bengal voters facing exclusion from subsidized ration, cash benefits and other welfare schemes of the government after being deleted from the electoral roll.
The petition, filed by Prasenjit Bose of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee, was argued by senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan. He stated that despite the declaratory ruling of the Supreme Court, the West Bengal government had issued at least three orders removing benefits under the Public Distribution System (PDS) and the Annapurna Cash Transfer System.
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Sankaranarayanan, with the assistance of advocate Neha Rathi, noted that the petition seeks to expedite nearly 3.4 million appeals filed by disqualified voters under the SIR exercise. He told the court that the Supreme Court had established 19 courts to adjudicate these appeals, but there was no official data on the number that had been decided so far. He urged the court to publish standard operating procedures for these courts.
“The SOPs were meant for internal work and are being effectively addressed by the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court. What is concerned is the reasonable rate of disposal of appeals,” the bench, also comprising Justices Joymalia Bagchi and V Mohana, said.
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With local body elections in West Bengal expected to begin by December this year, the petition sought a time-bound decision on appeals filed by voters seeking inclusion in the list after being placed on a suspicious list titled “logical inconsistency”. The petition also called for increasing the number of appeals courts from 19 to at least 42.
The court agreed to hear the matter along with the pending petitions challenging the SIR in West Bengal, which are scheduled to be heard next month. Sankaranarayanan requested an early hearing, noting that deleted voters remain deprived of welfare programs until the courts decide their appeals. “What concerns us is that the deletion of the SIR is being used to deprive them of benefits,” he said.
