New Delhi: The Calcutta high court’s circuit bench at Jalpaiguri has refused to direct passport authorities to process the application of a man whose name was deleted from the electoral roll during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). The court held that the “citizenship question” had to be resolved first, reports LiveLaw.The man, Sirajul Shekh, had appealed in a writ petition to the high court that the matter of his passport being kept “on hold” be resolved so that he could seek medical attention overseas.Noting that Shekh’s statutory appeal against deletion from the electoral rolls was pending, the bench of Justice Kausik Chanda said the SIR Appellate Tribunal should take up his matter early.Shekh was asked by the passport office to produce his original voter ID card, which he could not due to deletion from the voter roll. This, reported LiveLaw, was done through the Supplementary Deletion List.Avisikta Das, Shekh’s lawyer, argued before the court that a voter identity card is not a mandatory document under the Passports Act, 1967 or the Passports Rules, 1980, where identity, address and date of birth are otherwise established.However, the court declined the relief of directions to the passport office to issue his tatkal passport soon. The judge observed that, considering the volume of cases before the SIR Appellate Tribunal, disposal of appeals “could take 21 years”, Live Law reported.Last week, the Calcutta High Court denied interim relief in a public interest litigation challenging the West Bengal government’s decision delete beneficiaries of food subsidies based on the SIR, observing that no affected individual had yet approached the court so far.Also last week, the passport of a senior journalist deleted under SIR was “sent for printing” after a public outcry.