Kolkata

The rollout of voter appeal tribunals in West Bengal to hear grievances arising from the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is yet to be finalised, Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Agarwal said.

He noted that the Supreme Court of India has directed that voters whose names were deleted be allowed to approach tribunals, but modalities regarding their functioning are still under consideration.

According to Agarwal, the state government has proposed locations across districts, while the Calcutta High Court has suggested the Judicial Academy in New Town as a possible venue. A final decision will be taken by the high court, after which the state will provide infrastructure.

Officials said the digital system enabling voters to challenge adjudication decisions is ready and expected to go live shortly.

The Election Commission of India has placed several names under the “under adjudication” category due to suspected duplication, migration, or insufficient documentation. Voters can check their status individually through the EC portal.

The second supplementary list under the SIR exercise was released on Friday, though detailed figures on deletions and inclusions were not disclosed. Access to booth-wise data briefly faced technical issues.

Earlier, the revision exercise led to the deletion of around 58 lakh names, reducing the electorate from 7.66 crore to about 7.04 crore, with over 60 lakh cases still under scrutiny.

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Polling for the 294-seat West Bengal Assembly is scheduled for April 23 and 29, with counting on May 4.