A Murshidabad man has cleared all the selection hurdles for a police constable’s job. But he may not get it finally as his name no longer appears among voters in the revised electoral rolls.
The 37-year-old man has been working as a civic volunteer in Murshidabad since 2013.
On Wednesday, he was at a central government institute in Joka that houses the SIR appellate tribunals. Joka, on the southern outskirts of Calcutta, is about 240km from his home.
The Muslim man was stopped by the security personnel at the gates. When he pleaded his case, the guards called the office of the judge entrusted with appeals from his constituency.
The judge called the man in and reviewed his appeal.
“The judge decided to restore his vote. The order was prepared, but it could not be uploaded on the Election Commission of India (ECI) website because of a standoff,” said a source in the tribunal.
The standoff he referred to began on September 21. On that day, a tweak took effect, requiring the judges to enter their Aadhaar credentials to log into the ECI portal. The judges have refused to share their Aadhaar details, citing interference in the functioning of a quasi-judicial authority.
Since then, no adjudication has been formalised, nor has any order been uploaded to the ECI portal.
“You may please note that since Sept 21, 2026, all tribunals have been unable to upload their orders.... We are practically rendered functionless,” the judges wrote to the ECI.
The judges have also objected to the bar on uploading any documents beyond the 13 prescribed by the ECI, citing the same reason of interference.
“The judges are hearing some cases daily. The orders are being prepared. But nothing more than that. Whenever the stalemate is broken, the orders will be uploaded. Only then can a case be formally disposed of,” said the tribunal official.
The civic volunteer is still hopeful. “I filed an online appeal against the exclusion of my name. I did not get any hearing notice. But I could not wait any longer. The judge was very kind to hear me out of turn. I hope my name is returned to the voters’ list soon,” he told The Telegraph.
The man was put in the “logical discrepancy” category after the SIR because of a minor mismatch in the spelling of his father’s name, as it appeared in the 2002 electoral rolls and other documents. His father died in 2011.
The man gave his father’s death certificate and other relevant documents. But his name was still deleted when the final roll was published in the first week of April.
The man is the eldest of eight siblings, two of them yet to reach voting age. But the five other siblings were able to vote. “We have the same father. But only my name was deleted,” the man said.
Critics have repeatedly blamed an AI-driven software for the flawed exclusion of names from Bengal’s revised electoral rolls.
“My family is as worried as I am. Sleep is hard to come by,” said the man, married and father of two girls and a boy.
He has cleared the written exam for the police constable’s job, a physical fitness test and an interview that took place in January this year.
He saw his name on the merit list in the last week of September. “When I saw my name on the phone, I was elated but also sceptical.”
His concern was vindicated when the office of the local police superintendent told him his appointment could not be processed because his name had been struck off the rolls. “I was asked to visit the office in November again,” the man said.
Chief minister Suvendu Adhikari handed over around 11,000 recruitment letters to police constables at Netaji Indoor Stadium on Monday.
“I would have been there, collecting my letter from the chief minister, had my name remained on the voting list,” the man said.