JUDGES OF more than a dozen Tribunals appointed in West Bengal on the orders of the Supreme Court to process SIR appeals, including of 27 lakh deleted electors, have highlighted glaring gaps in a digital portal set up for them by the Election Commission of India’s IT division.Official records show they complained that the portal did not allow them to serve notices to parties, slowing down the disposal of appeals. It did not allow the Tribunals to upload additional documents from voters who filed appeals, or hold virtual hearings, or restore a deleted voter. It didn’t even let the appellants download Tribunal orders, the judges said.These concerns form the minutes of a meeting of over a dozen Tribunal judges on August 11 — there are 19 in all — and were conveyed to the Election Commission of India and the Chief Justice of the High Court of Calcutta, The Indian Express has learnt.Read | What appeals to tribunals say: ‘Lack of notice, hearing’, ‘documents not considered’An investigation by The Indian Express last month had revealed that two Election Commissioners had put on record 14 objections in 10 months to a string of decisions taken that pertain to who gets to vote and who doesn’t. One of the key concerns they raised was that ECINET, the EC’s principal digital system for citizens and officials, restricted access for the officers on the ground responsible for finalising the electoral rolls. Subsequently, the EC announced it would set up a committee with an “independent expert” to review ECINET and “double-check” its compliance with the law.Similarly, the hurdles highlighted by the Tribunal judges, they said, were, in effect, getting in the way of ensuring due process for deleted voters.On October 1, The Indian Express sent emails to the Election Commission of India and the Registrar General of the High Court of Calcutta for their response to the judges’ concerns and whether these were addressed. There was no response.The key challenges judges put on recordThe August 11 minutes put on record the challenges the judges face. The excerpts from the minutes are telling:Story continues below this ad* ‘Can’t serve notices’: “There is no mechanism…till date in spite of several requests and reminders to develop a common and proper mechanism on the portal to serve notice to the parties directly or through proper channel. Sometime in the month of May 2026 some of us even approved a format of notice to be issued to the parties but it has not seen the light of the day till date.”* ‘Can’t store documents: “…when the Tribunal finds uploaded documents are not in terms of enumeration form or whenever the Tribunal needs additional documents, there is no mechanism how the same are to be secured. In the absence of such a mechanism on the portal, each Tribunal is trying to serve the notices through e-emails, that is, through DM/DEO concerned but the response is very poor.”* ‘Can’t hold virtual hearings’: “There is no mechanism to hold virtual hearings in case the Tribunal intends to hear the parties…Once the appeal is disposed of either by way of deletion or inclusion of the voter, it cannot be restored on the portal if the restoration is needed on account of direction of the judicial order or otherwise.”* ‘Can’t give an order copy to appellant’: “There is no procedure for the parties to get certified copy or download copy of the order of the Tribunal from the designated portal to know the reasons why their name is deleted or included.” This is significant because the Supreme Court, in its order on April 1, had asked the tribunals to communicate the reasons and to revisit the records before they decide on the appeals.Story continues below this ad* ‘Can’t digitise physical records’: The judges flagged the uncertainty over the appeals filed physically with the District Magistrate/District Election Officers. “…there is no proper mechanism for maintenance of record of these appeals since they are not digitized. If their appeals are not brought to the proper channel, injustice will be done to such citizens,” they said.Incidentally, as early as April 6, the Supreme Court had acknowledged this same issue which had then been raised during the hearing in the petition of Mostari Banu, a West Bengal voter. “The ECI has already notified on 20.03.2026 that appeals can be filed either online through the ECI NET platform or physically at the office of the DM/SDM/SDO, who shall ensure digitisation and uploading of the appeal on the ECI NET platform at the earliest,” the SC had said in its April 6 order.Another judge complained in MayThere was an earlier alert, too. On May 22, one of the tribunal judges, wrote to the Calcutta High Court Chief highlighting how the issue of setting up a mechanism to send a notice was raised but went unheeded. “Absence of such a mechanism to notify the parties to the appeal is adversely affecting the pace of disposal of appeals,” said the judge in the letter to the CJ.The judge also underlined the lack of accurate data on the number of appeals disposed of being shared by the EC. “Unfortunately through ‘EC source’ incorrect data is being catered to the press regarding number of disposal, suppressing the fact ECI has not been able to set up proper mechanism for issuance of notice to the parties for hearing of the appeal,” the judge said in the letter.Shadow over appeal processStory continues below this adAll these concerns raised by Tribunal judges cast a shadow on the Supreme Court-ordered unique appellate process meant to give the 27 lakh deleted voters a chance to appeal their exclusion from the rolls.The Tribunals are a unique aspect of the contested West Bengal SIR process. As many as 27 lakh voters deleted had been identified by the Election Commission using algorithms for “logical discrepancies” and “unmapped” as per the documents they submitted during the SIR.After invoking its extraordinary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution while hearing a challenge to the SIR in West Bengal, the Supreme Court had on February 20 ordered appointment of judicial officers to decide on the eligibility of electors in the state. The Commission, using its centralised software, had drawn up a list of 60.06 lakh such electors, based on “logical discrepancies” flagged in their documents.Hundreds of judicial officers from Bengal, Odisha and Jharkhand, appointed by the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court, following the Supreme Court directions, went through these cases, finally deleting 27.16 lakh electors just weeks ahead of polling in the Assembly elections in the state in April.Story continues below this adTo give those affected a chance to appeal, the Supreme Court had on March 10 ordered appellate Tribunals of retired High Court judges to be established, which the EC did on March 20 by notifying 19 single-member tribunals. Since then, two judges have resigned citing personal reasons. They have been replaced with other former judges, it is learnt.TMC, BJP evenly shared gains in seats with heavy deletionsThe two-phase elections in West Bengal last April led to a landslide win for the BJP. The incumbent Trinamool Congress claimed voter deletions played a role in its defeat but that’s an allegation more political than empirical. SIR deletions exceeded the victory margin in 49 seats of the 293 that went to polls. In these, the spoils were almost evenly shared — 26 were won by the BJP and 21 by the TMC.The EC had not released any data of the appellate process until a submission in the Supreme Court in another related matter on September 18, when it said 38.31 lakh appeals had been filed, of which only 1.26 lakh had been disposed of till September 10. Of the total appeals, it said, 22.21 lakh were filed by voters who had been deleted and 16.10 lakh were filed against inclusions (i.e., seeking deletion).Story continues below this adBefore the elections, problems with another portal used by judicial officers to adjudicate 60 lakh names were also raised during Supreme Court hearings. In fact, the court noted this in its order on March 10.“The judicial officers, through the Hon’ble Chief Justice, have expressed an urgent concern, which seems to have been created due to some mistake at the level of the Election Commission of India… Learned senior counsel for the Election Commission of India assures that the same shall be rectified immediately without any delay. We strongly recommend that the Election Commission of India provide full logistic support to the High Court at Calcutta and all the judicial officers in the completion of the responsibilities which we have assigned to them through our order dated 24.02.2026,” the March 10 order said.