The Election Commission has asked the judges hearing West Bengal’s voter-roll appeals to buy digital signature certificates, backed by PAN cards and government IDs, to get around a six-week boycott of its Aadhaar login. The offer comes more than a month after the judges stopped using the EC portal, and with more than 37 lakh appeals still waiting for a decision.
The judges sit on the appellate tribunals the Supreme Court set up to review deletions and inclusions made during Bengal’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. According to official records seen by The Indian Express, the Chief Electoral Officer’s (CEO) office last week told them to obtain the certificates through a private agency. Since the Aadhaar requirement arrived on September 21, no tribunal has uploaded a single order, The Telegraph has reported.
How the stand-off began
The dispute traces to September 21, when the EC added an Aadhaar authentication screen to the tribunals’ portal. The change followed a presentation on portal updates by Seema Khanna, the EC’s Director General (IT).
Four days later the judges pushed back. On September 24, the venue-in-charge of the tribunals wrote to West Bengal’s Additional Chief Electoral Officer (ACEO): “The Honourable Judges at the Appellate Tribunal require the Aadhaar authentication screen removed from the AT portal for the purpose of disposal of appeals.” At a meeting the next day, the 13 judges present resolved unanimously not to enter personal Aadhaar details to upload decisions, calling the requirement interference with a quasi-judicial body
The judges raised more than Aadhaar. They also objected to a cap of 13 document categories per case and asked to be allowed to correct clerical errors after upload.
Since then the judges have not logged in to the portal or disposed of appeals online, though sources say they have kept working offline.
An older grievance. The Aadhaar row sits on top of earlier complaints. At an August 11 meeting, 11 tribunal heads listed portal gaps: no way to serve notices, request extra documents, hold virtual hearings, or let appellants download orders. One judge had flagged the missing notice mechanism to the Calcutta High Court Chief Justice as early as May 22.
The EC’s workaround: digital signature certificates
Instead of Aadhaar, each judge would sign in with a digital signature certificate (DSC) issued through a private agency, at Rs 2,300 a certificate. The requirements come from an email the agency sent the CEO’s office on October 28.
| Stage | What the judge must provide or do |
| Documents | Colour scans of PAN card and a government-issued ID; a recent colour photograph |
| Contact | A valid mobile number and email address |
| Authorisation | ID of the authorising official, plus an authorisation letter |
| Verification, step 1 | One-time passwords sent to the registered mobile and email |
| Verification, step 2 | Video call showing the original PAN card and government ID |
| Cost | Rs 2,300 per certificate, at government-notified rates |
The route swaps Aadhaar for PAN, but it still asks the judges for personal identity documents and a live video check. Whether that meets their objection is not yet known. For a sense of scale: at 19 tribunals, certificates for one judge each would cost about Rs 43,700.
Timeline
| Date (2026) | Event |
| Oct 28 | Private agency emails the CEO’s office the DSC requirements |
| Oct 26 | EC tells the Supreme Court that 16.10 lakh appeals against inclusions were filed by officers of the CEO’s office. |
| Sep 25 | 13 tribunal judges resolve not to share Aadhaar details |
| Sep 24 | Tribunals write to the ACEO asking for the Aadhaar screen to be removed |
| Sep 21 | Aadhaar authentication added to the tribunal portal |
| Sep 16 | EC affidavit: 38.2 lakh appeals filed, 1.02 lakh disposed. |
| Aug 11 | 11 tribunal heads list portal defects at a meeting |
| May 4 | BJP wins 206–207 of 294 Assembly seats, ending 15 years of TMC rule. |
| Apr 2 | Tribunals begin hearing appeals. |
| Mar 21 | EC notifies 19 appellate tribunals, headed by former HC judges. |
| Mar 10 | Supreme Court directs the EC to set up an appellate body. |
| Feb 28 | Final roll published; about 60 lakh names marked “under adjudication” |
| Feb 20 | Supreme Court, citing a “trust deficit”, deploys judicial officers to decide voter eligibility. |
Note: the original draft dated the Supreme Court’s tribunal order to March 20. Published reports place the order on March 10 and the EC’s notification of the 19 tribunals on March 20–21.
Why it matters
Every week the portal stays idle, about 22 lakh people whose names were deleted wait longer to learn whether they can vote. Petitioners have asked the Supreme Court to prioritise exclusion appeals, and Kolkata and Howrah alone carried about 2.29 lakh pending appeals in September ahead of December municipal polls.
The open questions:
- Will the judges accept PAN-based certificates, or do they object to any personal identity check by the EC?
- Will the EC also address the other defects the judges raised, such as notices, document limits and order downloads?
- Will the Supreme Court, which already monitors the tribunals, step in on the portal itself?
The EC has not publicly explained why Aadhaar authentication was added to the portal.
