West Bengal SIR & Judges' Gherao : Live Updates From Supreme Court

J Bagchi: we are conscious of your concern. We had said that the appellate tribunals would look into the continuation of the constitutional right.

Divan: we suggest a cut off date off 15 April so that final supplementary electoral roll can be published by 18 April, 5 days before the polling date

Divan: in case of mapped electors whose appeals remain pending beyond 15 April the court should consider them to be included in the roll so that no elector is disenfranchised

Divan: there were some hiccups and only a few cases were taken up by the appellate Tribunal. That is concerning. There are long meanders queues outside the tribunals and electors are facing great difficulties in filing the appeals

Divan: of the 20 lakh published cases of deleted electors, 7 lakh have already filed and several appeals are in the process of being filed. The court notified the Appellate Tribunal on 10th of March but they are yet to be operational

Senior Advocate Shyam Divan: out of 60 lakh cases data of 44 lakh cases is available. Inclusion rate is about 55% well rejection rate is 45% which seems quite high despite the judicial safeguard.

Counsel: your lordships have said that it is left to the tribunals.

CJI mentions letter by Justice TS Sivagnanam, former Chief Justice.

CJI: he wanted some clarification about what should be the procedure regarding personal hearing.

CJI read out a letter from Calcutta HC Chief Justice regarding the progress of SIR and disposal of appeals by the appellate tribunals.

Senior Advocate DS Naidu for ECI: we have appointed a nodal officer to co-ordinate. In the morning a candidate's plea was mentioned even that was disposed of.

Matter begins. Court is hearing the suo motu case alongwith the batch of writ petitions challenging SIR in West Bengal.