No clarity on hearing process of tribunals: SIR leaves voters in lurch
Times of India | 15 April 2026
Kolkata: Not a single applicant approaching the appellate tribunal against SIR deletion nor their lawyers seem to have any clarity about the process to follow if they want to get back on the voter roll.
Haridevpur resident Aloke Basu had gone to Joka's Dr Syama Prasad Mookherjee National Institute of Water and Sanitation for two consecutive days —Sunday and Monday — with the hope that the tribunal will hear his case that his last name has been wrongfully recorded as ‘Bose' leading to deletion. But till now there has been no communication of a hearing.
"I have contacted my BLO, he doesn't know. Neighbours — quite a many — who have been deleted are in touch on whether we are being called for hearing. We don't know if we will be heard or our fate will lie on the same absurd logic that led to our deletion in the first place," Basu said.
Raghunath Chakraborty, a lawyer who has been extensively providing legal advice to deleted voters in Howrah, said, "They could have had some website where the hearing dates could have been enlisted." Lawyers like Chakraborty and advocate Saikat Thakurata have been helping people from weaker economic backgrounds file appeals and represent them pro bono.
While 16 tribunals, according to Chief Justice Sujoy Paul's letter to SC on Monday, started functioning from Monday, the deleted electors and their lawyers remain under confusion as to how they will be called upon for hearing and where can they view the orders passed by these tribunals.
During the April 6 hearing at SC, CJI Surya Kant, referring to CJ Paul's letter, noted that a retired chief justice had flagged the issue regarding the procedure for providing ‘personal hearing' to the affected party.
"There is no clarity as to how the applicant will be called. Whether it will be a personal hearing or the tribunal is simply going to go through the already submitted documents. Interestingly, which documents will be given to the tribunal is also now known to the applicant," said Calcutta High Court advocate Firdous Samim.
He has the experience of appearing for two candidates fielded in the election by Congress and Aam Janata Unnayan Party (AJUP) — Motab Shaikh from Farakka and Kechhabuddin Sekh from Kaliganj, respectively.
In case of Motab, Samim had physically appeared at Bichar Bhawan where documents were provided and subsequently Motab's name was restored, enabling him to stand as a candidate. Citing the SC order of Sept 8, 2025, former Justice T S Sivagnanam observed that Aadhar card can be accepted as a supporting document. Though it is not a proof of citizenship, it is "one of the documents enumerated for the purpose of establishing the identity of a person".
Meanwhile, in the case of Kechhabuddin, Samim was given a conference call link and he presented his client's case. Kechhabuddin was also present during the hearing. Ultimately, his name was also directed to be included as it was found that documents given clearly showed that he's a permanent resident of Nadia's Hat Gobindapur village.
Samim suggested that there can be an online platform where orders are uploaded because even in the petition filed in SC on Monday, the counsel had cited Motab's case as precedence.
Even though a three-member panel comprising of former CJ T S Sivagnanam, Justice Pradipta Roy, and Justice Pranab Kumar Deb was formed by the CJ Sujoy Paul after SC order of April 7 to form the SOP, the deleted electors remain confused as to how they would be called for hearing. All they have now is an ‘appeal number' which was sent to their registered mobile via SMS.