Among the grounds cited by voters deleted after adjudication, in their appeals to tribunals in Bengal, are the lack of notice or hearing before being struck off the rolls; an apprehension that the documents submitted by them were not taken into account by judicial officers adjudicating on their eligibility; and being served notices for “logical discrepancies” that did not apply to them at all.Thirty-four lakh applications are pending before the tribunals, as per data shared by the Election Commission of India (ECI), including appeals for both inclusion and exclusion. Till Wednesday, the ECI had considered only around 650 cases, and put back 139 names into the electoral rolls for the first phase of polling today.The Indian Express accessed appeals filed by the applicants through their lawyers across districts, which show that many of them had submitted documents establishing their eligibility, including citizenship. They suspect that these were not presented to the Supreme Court-appointed judicial officers by the Electoral Registration Officers (EROs)/Assistant EROs, who are the statutory authority for maintaining electoral rolls.Also Read | To delete voters, Election Commission cites ‘logical discrepancy’. Why this defies logicDocuments submitted but names deletedImran Zaki, a Kolkata-based businessman and educationist, said in his appeal that, as advised by a Booth Level Officer (BLO), he submitted his passport as proof, but his name was sent for adjudication without notice to him and then deleted in the supplementary list published on April 6. He, too, suspects his documents were not placed before the judicial officer concerned.“I was called by the BLO and asked to submit additional documents. I gave my passport, which has been issued by the Ministry of External Affairs. In the past I have flown from Europe to be able to vote, but this time I won’t be able to,” he said.Another deleted elector, Durri Bhalla, a cookbook author, has also filed an appeal mentioning her apprehension that her documents were not placed before the JO. She says she was called, along with her husband and daughter, to submit additional documents during a hearing. While she says she carried all documents, passport included, the officials present said they only needed one. Her name was struck off the rolls, while her husband’s and daughter’s were not.Yasmeen Rahman, a Kolkata resident who voted in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, got a notice under category of mismatch in name of father in current and previous rolls. But, interestingly, she says she gave her own serial number in the 2002 electoral roll, not her father’s. In the 2002 roll, Yasmeen was enrolled as Jharna Biswas, which was her name before she converted and got married over two decades ago. Her husband, Abdur Rahman, says they submitted all the documents possible – her conversion certificate, nikahnama and old Electors Photo Identity Card (EPIC) with her old name and photograph.Story continues below this adHe adds that all her documents, including the EPIC, were duly changed to her new name after marriage. She says her name was still deleted in the supplementary list released on March 29, even after she appeared for a hearing and provided documents on January 27.Another Kolkata resident who has been deleted from the rolls, Rafiqa Khatoon, 83, submitted a copy of her passport. Her appeal says she, too, got a notice for mismatch in father’s name in the current and previous roll. She had appeared for a hearing on February 1 and submitted documents, including proof of her own name in the 2002 roll. “My father died in 1973, so the question of mismatch can’t arise,” she wrote in her appeal.Her son, Tanweeruddin Anwar, says: “We don’t understand why this has happened when the name was in the 2002 rolls and we submitted the passport and her pension order too as my father was a government employee,” he said.In another case, the deleted elector, a woman who moved to Kolkata from Jharkhand two decades ago, had submitted her name in the 2003 Jharkhand electoral roll, as the EC had allowed electors to use the electoral roll of any state from the respective last intensive revision as proof. Since her husband is a Central government employee, she requested not to be named.Story continues below this adShe received a notice for mismatch in her father’s name. Apart from one document, her father’s name was written as Mohammad, followed by his given name, in all. In one, it was spelled as “Md”, a commonly used abbreviation for Mohammad. Despite submitting documents during the hearing, she found her name deleted in the list on April 1. In her appeal, she has argued that “Md” is a prefix and that there is no mismatch.Tarique Quasimuddin, an advocate at the Calcutta High Court whose chambers have helped around 300 disenfranchised electors file their appeals, said many of the appellants had passports. “What we have experienced is that in some of the cases, the Booth Level Officers did not advise the electors properly. They told them that only one document is enough. This did not give them an opportunity to establish their claim,” he said.The Election Commission of India did not respond to a request for comment sent on Monday.Sabir Ahamed, whose Kolkata-based Sabar Institute has helped electors file appeals and conducted legal aid camps for those affected, said the tribunals, which were notified by the EC on March 20, are yet to start working.Story continues below this ad“The inefficiency of the ECI is a serious blow to the democratic rights of citizens. West Bengal is heading into elections with nearly 27 lakh voters still awaiting the restoration of their voting rights. The tribunals are yet to begin functioning, and it appears that people will have to undergo the ordeal of attending tribunal proceedings for years to come. The judiciary should take cognisance of such a failure of the system,” Ahamed said.The process followedOn orders of the Supreme Court, around 700 judicial officers from West Bengal, Jharkhand and Odisha were appointed in February to decide on the eligibility of 60.06 lakh electors or 8% of the electorate, in an unprecedented move that saw the court invoke its powers under Article 142 of the Constitution. These electors were among those flagged by the EC’s centralised algorithm as having “logical discrepancies” in the documents submitted by them during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls started last year.After adjudication, 27.10 lakh of these electors were found ineligible and deleted from the rolls as on April 7, just weeks ahead of the Assembly polls on April 23 and April 29. The Supreme Court, while hearing a batch of petitions challenging the SIR, on March 10 had ordered the setting up of appellate tribunals of former High Court Chief Justices/judges so as to give those affected a chance to appeal the decision of the Judicial Officers. Nineteen former judges were then appointed by the EC on March 20 as single-member appellate tribunals.While the EC is yet to release any data on the number of appeals and their status, the court noted in its order on April 13 that a total of 34 lakh appeals against exclusions as well as inclusions in the rolls had been filed. The court again invoked Article 142, ordering that anyone cleared by the tribunals till April 21 for the first phase and April 27 for the second, would be allowed to vote and the EC would publish supplementary lists for the same. As of Monday, a day before the deadline for phase one, no names cleared by the tribunals had been published.