West Bengal SIR | 37 Lakh Appeals Pending; Less Than 3% Disposed By Appellate Tribunals : ECI Tells Supreme Court

In the West Bengal SIR matter, the Election Commission has filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court stating that over 97% of the appeals filed before Appellate Tribunals are pending disposal. The affidavit, filed on September 16, mentions that a total of over 38 lakh (38,20,683) appeals were filed before the Appellate Tribunals. Out of these, only 1,02,231 (roughly 2.68%) have been disposed of, while 37,18,452 remain to be decided. Notably, the Commission has not furnished bifurcated data to the Court on the number of appeals filed against exclusions vis-a-vis the number of appeals filed against inclusions. On the last hearing date, the petitioners, based on RTI information, had told the Supreme Court that over 80% of the appeals have been filed by third-parties challenging the inclusion in voters lists, and the appeals filed by excluded voters form only about 20%.