Kolkata, April 6 (IANS) Senior Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Vibhu Goel was on Monday appointed as an Additional Chief Electoral Officer (ACEO) for West Bengal, exclusively to coordinate with the judges heading the 19 Appellate Tribunals set up to settle cases where names of voters have been deleted during the judicial adjudication of cases classified under the “logical discrepancy” category.

As per the notification issued by the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal, Manoj Kumar Agarwal, on Monday afternoon, Goel will act as the single point of contact between the Election Commission of India (ECI), Appellate Tribunal judges, and the Calcutta High Court.

Goel will also be responsible for ensuring real-time communication of all instructions, advisories, and updates from the ECI to the Appellate Tribunal judges and overseeing the readiness of infrastructure and logistics at the tribunal venues, including staff, technical support, transport, and security arrangements, as per the notification.

He will also monitor and communicate the status of appeal uploads on the ECI portal for respective districts, coordinate and inform Appellate Tribunal judges regarding honorarium, modalities, and timelines of disbursement, address queries and grievances raised by the judges, and facilitate seamless coordination while communicating readiness timelines and operational preparedness of the Appellate Tribunals to the judges and the Calcutta High Court.

“These responsibilities are assigned in conformity with the requisition conveyed by the Registrar General, Hon’ble High Court of Calcutta to ensure seamless, accountable, and time-bound coordination in the functioning of Appellate Tribunals under SIR 2026,” read the notification issued by the CEO, West Bengal.

To recall, the final voters’ list in West Bengal — excluding the 60 lakh cases referred for judicial adjudication — was published on February 28. It was decided that supplementary lists would be released in line with the progress of the adjudication process.

Before the notification of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) was issued for West Bengal in November last year, the total number of voters in the state stood at 7,66,37,529. In the draft voters’ list published in December last year, a total of 58,20,899 names were deleted. In the final voters’ list published on February 28, the deletion figure rose to 63,66,952.

–IANS

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