The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a plea to prioritise the appeals filed in the SIR appellate tribunals by deleted voters from Kolkata and Howrah municipalities where elections are due in November.

The Chief Justice of India said that he will examine if the matter can be taken up on October 16.

Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan and Advocate Prashant Bhushan mentioned the matter before CJI Surya Kant seeking urgent listing. Sankaranarayanan stated that the West Bengal SIR matter has been pushed to October 30, and requested for an earlier hearing date.

The CJI then said that the matter can be taken up on October 29. However, Sankaranarayanan expressed that it might be too late, as the municipal elections are likely to be notified mid-November.

"We have already missed the by-elections; now will miss the municipal elections also," the senior counsel submitted, highlighting that 93% of the nearly 1 lakh appeals which have been decided so far have restored the voters to the rolls.

Bhushan informed the bench that nearly 1.70 lakh appeals are pending in the Tribunals from these two municipal constituencies. He prayed for an interim order allowing those appellants to vote, considering the fact that over 90% of the decided appeals have gone in favour of the voters.

The CJI said that the Court was examining the issue of appellate tribunals. Justice Joymalya Bagchi added that the Court was "fully conscious of the problem".

The CJI said that one solution could be to ask the Tribunals to prioritise appeals filed by deleted persons from the constituencies where elections are due.

"There are some appeals by persons seeking deletion. Those can be pushed behind and taken last. Appeals for inclusion can be taken http://first.In that, where elections are there, those can be at priority," the CJI said.

"We will find out if we can list on 16th (Friday) ...otherwise 29th is best way," the CJI said.

The CJI had earlier turned down a plea to urgently hear the West Bengal SIR matters ahead of the Nandigram and Rejinagar by-elections, by observing "these are just by-elections."