Repeated resignations of retired judges from court-mandated tribunals point to deeper problems of capacity and post-retirement appointments. Analyse.

On 7 November 2026, Justice (retd.) Biswajit Basu became the fourth retired Calcutta High Court judge to resign from West Bengal's 19 SIR appellate tribunals. Former Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam had resigned before him. These tribunals face about 38 lakh voter appeals [1]. Each judge gave personal reasons, but the pattern points to faults in how the forum was designed.

Capacity deficit

• Mismatch of scale: Each tribunal has roughly 2 lakh appeals. Basu himself called resolving lakhs of cases "a little difficult", and the judges have complained about slow disposal [1].
• Uneven staffing: Earlier, judicial officers from West Bengal, Odisha and Jharkhand together decided over 60 lakh objections [2]. The appeal stage needs more legal reasoning, yet it rests on just 19 individuals.
• Fragile design: One judge heads each tribunal. A resignation stalls that tribunal until the Calcutta HC Chief Justice finds a replacement [1].
• Ad hoc basis: The tribunals exist because the Supreme Court directed them, not because a statute created them. They have no permanent structure and no fixed timelines.
• Cost to rights: Under Article 142, an appeal enters the supplementary roll only if it is decided before the cut-off date. A pending appeal does not give an excluded voter the right to vote [2]. Delay therefore means losing the vote that Article 326 guarantees.

Post-retirement appointment problem

• Exit at will: Retired judges on short assignments are not bound by service rules. They can leave whenever they choose [1].
• Competing offers: The State government has appointed Basu chairman of its Commission on Institutional Corruption [1]. No wrongdoing is alleged, but the appearance of a conflict hurts trust in a politically sensitive forum.
• Ignored warnings: In 2013, the Standing Committee on the Judicial Appointments Commission Bill recommended a ten-year cooling-off period before retired judges take tribunal or commission posts [3]. No law followed.
• Judicial critique: In Madras Bar Association (2025), the Supreme Court warned that short tenures turn tribunals into "post-retirement havens" [4].

The resignations are individual decisions. But a thinly staffed, court-improvised forum that depends on retired judges free to leave was always fragile. The way forward:

• add benches staffed by serving judicial officers;
• hear exclusion appeals first;
• amend the Representation of the People Act, 1950 to create a permanent appeal mechanism with timelines;
• adopt the 2013 cooling-off recommendation.

Together, these steps would protect universal adult franchise and the public's trust in the courts.