The Election Commission’s door-to-door drive to re-enrol voters left out during the Special Intensive Revision will not cover West Bengal cases pending before appellate tribunals. The EC filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court saying 22.21 lakh appeals are pending in the state’s tribunals.

A senior EC official said booth-level officers would re-check the absent, shifted, dead and duplicate voter lists, but those already before tribunals are “subject to judicial proceedings” and cannot use the Form 6 route.

The 19 appellate tribunals were set up on March 21 under the Supreme Court’s oversight after lakhs of names were excluded in West Bengal. Data given to the court shows 38.31 lakh appeals were filed, but only 1.26 lakh have been decided so far.

Senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram questioned the process on Saturday. He said 91 to 93 per cent of decided appeals restored voters’ names, and asked why the EC had not told the court that left-out voters could simply file Form 6.