Five persons deleted from West Bengal electoral rolls after the Special Intensive Revision have approached the Supreme Court seeking expeditious decisions on their appeals by the Appellate Tribunals so they can cast their votes in the Kolkata and Howrah municipal elections in November.

By way of an application, filed through Advocate Prashant Bhushan, in the West Bengal SIR matter, the applicants claim that their names were deleted without any notice to them.

They also seek constitution of a Special Investigation Team to enquire into the SIR decision-making process and original records underlying the initiation thereof.

As per the application, the Kolkata and Howrah municipal corporation elections are scheduled to be held in late November, with the electoral process expected to be completed by December 7. Relying on ECI affidavits, it is stated that there are 1.7 lakhs appeals pending in Kolkata and Howrah (where elections are due).

The applicants aver that no notification/order has been issued by the Chief Electoral Officer, West Bengal, prescribing or defining the criteria for identification of 'logical discrepancies'. Further, no mechanism for adjudication of these 'LD' cases been prescribed.

On facts of their case, they state that they duly filled their enumeration forms and their names appeared in the draft rolls. However, in January this year, they were issued notices and summoned for hearings on the basis of alleged 'logical discrepancies'.

Apparently, the applicants attended the hearings but their names were marked as 'under adjudication' and in April, they came to know that their names had been deleted from the electoral rolls. It is alleged that the applicants did not receive any speaking order from the judicial officers about the outcome of their case, nor was any notice issued to them before deletion of their names.

Aggrieved, they filed appeals before the Appellate Tribunals in second week of April.

Relying on a report by The Indian Express, the applicants further highlight that ECI's post-SIR re-enrolment exercise in West Bengal will not cover cases where appeals against exclusion are pending before Tribunals. In these circumstances, they say it is necessary that the pending appeals in Howrah and Kolkata be expeditiously disposed of so as to ensure that people can exercise their right to vote in the municipal elections.

The application claims that voters already got disenfranchised once during the recently concluded West Bengal Assembly elections.