Kolkata: The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (WBNUJS) has come forward to offer free legal help to those whose names have been deleted or are still under adjudication.The Legal Aid Society of the university, comprising three professors and student volunteers, has started offering the help from Friday. The Legal Aid Clinic will be open from noon till 5 pm. On their first day, they received at least 35 calls from individuals seeking help to draft appeals before the tribunal. A resident of Bowbazar, whose name was deleted visited the clinic on Friday.VC Nandimath O V said: “Our job is to help and work for justice.” Professor Sarfaraz Ahmed Khan, also faculty adviser of the Legal Aid Society, said: “The purpose is to collectively help genuine voters who have been unjustifiably deleted and deprived of their fundamental rights so that more and more people can get back their lost rights.”Subharun Das, a first-year student and member of the Society, said: “Afaque Ahmed Khan, a resident of Bowbazar, visited us today. His name has been deleted along with his wife and another family member. His father and mother’s names are there in the electoral roll. His name was there on the 2022 electoral list and he submitted all documents during the hearing. We are helping him to make a proper draft of his appeal because in the online appeal, it is not possible to show documents.“Khan shared: “Each case is different and has its own merit. Many of them have already filed an appeal but, as a strategy, we are helping them to make a detailed petition and attach documents and telling them to submit the hard copy of the documents offline because in the online portal there is no option to submit the documents. This will be in continuation of their appeal, not a separate one.”Fourth-year student and student-coordinator of the Society Ankit Amarnath said: “We are receiving calls from various districts. Since it is not possible for everyone to visit our campus on a short notice, we are asking people to send their issues and the documents on WhatsApp so that we can go through them. Those who are in Kolkata, we are also asking them to physically come to our clinic.”Md Zaeed, an elector from Jorasanko, contacted the NUJS team to get suggestions for his submission of appeal in offline mode. “I do not know why my name was deleted. I have already submitted an online appeal but the NUJS team suggested that I file a physical appeal with documents.” Saket Saroki called the Society for his father-in-law and mother-in-law, who were removed from voter rolls. “Both of them are senior citizens and have been voters from Bhowanipore constituency for several years. Surprisingly, their names went missing. They could not attend the hearing because of health reasons and their names were deleted.”
