New Delhi, April 10 The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a fresh plea along with existing ones challenging the Election Commission's freezing of electoral rolls ahead of the upcoming assembly elections in West Bengal on April 13.
The election panel has finalized and frozen the electoral rolls for the assembly seats that will go to polls in the first phase on April 9.
Assembly elections in West Bengal will be held in two phases on April 23 and 29, and votes will be counted for all elections on May 4.
Freezing the electoral rolls means that no new person, who has been deleted, can be added to the voters list for these assembly elections.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi was urged by a lawyer to take up the plea against freezing on an urgent basis.
The lawyer said that many appeals against deletions from the electoral rolls are still pending, and the election panel has frozen the rolls on April 9.
"We will consider the petition on April 13," the CJI said.
Senior advocate D S Naidu, appearing for the election panel, said that the freezing date was April 9, and after that, no one will be considered.
"The right to vote remains, and these appellants are in a similar situation to others whose appeals were allowed," Naidu said.
"What is the framework… we are thinking about it. There is a cut-off line with respect to an election, and underlying is a constitutional right to be on the electoral roll and to vote in future elections. That is much higher and permanent," Justice Bagchi said.
The CJI said that the person is not being permanently deprived.
On April 6, the bench noted that around 60 lakh claims and objections of those removed from voters' lists in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in poll-bound West Bengal have been decided.
It had asked the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court to constitute a three-member panel of former senior judges to frame uniform procedures for 19 tribunals for deciding appeals against deletions from the electoral rolls.
