32 lakh cases pending: Why court foresees 21 years of wait at Bengal tribunals

38,000 cases cleared, 32 lakh pending.

Since March end, when tribunals were set up in West Bengal to tackle cases of “logical discrepancies” after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise by the Election Commission was concluded, and long after the Assembly polls which the SIR was timed with got over in the state, the clearance rate continues to crawl, standing at 1.18% cases at the end of last month, as per sources.

On Wednesday, the Jalpaiguri Circuit Bench of the Calcutta High Court observed that at this rate it would take 21 years for the tribunals to clear the cases. The court was hearing an appeal from a person over his tatkal passport application being stuck because of his case pending before a tribunal – at least the second case linked to passports and tribunal hearings to land in a court in Bengal.

At ground zero, the picture shows no change. There is still no official word on how many of the cases dealt with by the tribunals have ended in deletions, the promised dashboard on the number of cases pending and resolved is yet to materialise, and people whose cases are pending before tribunals remain in the dark, with a handful trooping daily to the government building in Joka on the outskirts of Kolkata, where the tribunals are operating, for news.

Last month, Congress MP from Malda South Isha Khan Chowdhury filed a PIL in the Calcutta High Court demanding that tribunals speed up work and that the number of judges heading them be increased. The PIL is yet to get a hearing.

On a rainy Tuesday, some are hanging outside the building clutching papers dealing with their own cases, others are here on behalf of relatives who have received a call to appear before the tribunals.

Nitu Hela, 34, who belongs to nearby Pailan, is at the building with her 1-year-old daughter. Her parents, originally from Durgapur but settled in Kolkata, are dead. While her husband and in-laws cleared the SIR, her name was deleted as she could not provide her parents’ birth certificate, she says. “I applied online… I do not know when they will call me.”

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Nitu also wonders how to prove her case. “I have all the other documents except my parents’ death certificates. “

Ispahan Sheikh 38, of Bishnupur Thana in South 24 Paraganas, was also deleted from the voter list during the SIR. Sheikh says he moved to Qatar in 2009 for work, later shifting to Kuwait where he is employed as an AC mechanic. He came to his home town last year in order to renew his passport and to get some other documents to start up his own business, Sheikh says. But, this coincided with the SIR.

“I filled the form but my name got deleted. The BLO does not know anything. Now, until my issue is resolved, I cannot go back to Kuwait,” says Ispahan.

Subarna Mondol, 33, from Joka runs a salon. While her parents and brothers cleared the SIR, her name was deleted. Mondol says all her documents have her mother’s name but she does not have papers linking her father’s name with her grandfather. “Police told me that since our judge has resigned, work on cases of South 24 Parganas is not happening.”

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At least two judges heading respective tribunals have resigned, including former Calcutta High Court judge Justice Ranjit Bag, who was handling appeals from South 24 Parganas, and ex-Calcutta High Court Chief Justice T S Sivagnanam.

Syed Shah Mohammad Shamser Alam Alkadri, 61 and a teacher of Arabic, says he has come to the Joka institute on behalf of his niece Tuhina Bibi, who received a notice to appear before the tribunals. His own name and that of his wife and all four daughters were also deleted, he says. “I am an Indian, my daughters were born here, their birth certificates record this, I have property papers dating back to the 1960s. How are the names of my family deleted?”

With Tuhina getting notice for a hearing, Alkadri says he has come to understand the procedure so that he and his family members are “prepared”.

While state Chief Electoral Officer Neelam Meena could not be reached despite multiple attempts, Congress MP Isha Chowdhury, who has filed a case on the SIR tribunals in the High Court, said: “Elections are over, the entire procedure should have been completed by now… Everything is at a standstill… We want complete transparency.”