Mainstream WeeklyPrelude
On April 6, having been directed by the Supreme Court, a very senior judge heading one of the nineteen tribunals, constituted by the Calcutta High Court, of retired HC judges to decide on appeals against the outcomes of the "adjudication" process pursuant to the SIR in West Bengal — delivers a lightning swift judgement on the first and understandably one of the only two cases decided as yet. He has quite graciously restored the appellant’s status as a rightful voter and consequently has also enabled him to contest in the coming poll as the Congress candidate from the Farakka constituency in Murshidabad.
Incidentally, the second case decided — and decided in favour of the petitioner — is also very much of the same nature. The appellant, a former MLA, is also a proposed Congress candidate from Ratua constituency in neighbouring Malda.[1]
To be sure, while both are Muslim neither is an ordinary voter.
Here is a somewhat longish excerpt from a news report giving out the essential features of the case:
Mehtab [Sheikh] is the first deleted Bengal voter cleared by a tribunal. None of the 19 tribunals has heard a single case except his so far, apparently because of