New Delhi: Chief Justice of India Surya Kant was part of a bench which rejected a request to urgently hear a case on the lakhs of pending appeals since the Bengal special intensive revision of electoral rolls ahead of the October 6 bypolls.“These are only by-elections, that’s all,” the CJI said, according to Bar and Bench.The bench comprised Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana, along with the CJI. The three declined to advance the date of hearing in view of the October 6 by-polls in Rejinagar and Nandigram assembly constituencies in Bengal.Justice Bagchi had, during April and just before the assembly elections of Bengal, echoed a similar sentiment when he famously observed: “This election yes perhaps they can’t vote. The more valuable right to remain on the rolls shall be preserved.”It was also Justice Bagchi who laid out the fundamental problem of keeping voters out of the lists in an operation that did not end before the elections. He said in an April hearing, according to LiveLaw:“If 10% of the electorate does not vote and the winning margin is more than 10%…what will happen? Suppose margin is 2% and 15% of electorate who are mapped could not vote, then maybe, we are not expressing any opinion, but we would definitely have to apply our minds. Please keep this in mind that the concern of a vigilant voter whose name correctly or incorrectly is not in the list is not in our minds.”The counsel who made the request for an urgent hearing of the matter said the case was listed for hearing on October 29 but is now tentatively showing as listed for October 5, Bar and Bench noted in its report.“We are seeking urgent directions so that it can be listed before that. There are more than 18,000 appeals pending which have not been disposed of. These people did not take part in the first elections,” the counsel said, according to the report.The case will, nonetheless, be listed on October 5, even though this is the second time that voters will miss out on voting.As The Wire has reported, over 37 lakh of a total 38 lakh appeals are still pending in the court-ordered tribunals.A Right to Information (RTI) response to Congress MP Isha Khan Choudhury’s application by the Chief Electoral Officer of Bengal had startling figures – of the appeals decided, 75,443 resulted in voters being included in the electoral roll, while 7,339 resulted in exclusion. Thus 91.13% of the decided appeals resulted in inclusion, offering a distinct chance that a majority of the voters still out of the electoral list could be included.The Bengal SIR is further riddled with disconcerting discoveries of targeted exclusions affecting Muslim voters in key constituencies. Revelations by the Indian Express on how two Election Commissioners were none the wiser on what The Wire has reported were lakhs of centralised appeals against the inclusion of voters in Bengal have furthered concerns.A series on how the adjudication process of the Special Intensive Revision in West Bengal continues in Bengal unfurls this truth. Read part one, here, part two, here, and part three, here, part four, here, and part five, here.For our full coverage on the SIR and the issues it has brought to citizens, click here.