The collection and scrutiny of information about the prospective voters and preparation of the draft electoral roll officially ended yesterday, keeping substantial numbers of eligible voters out of the list.

The commission, however, has yet to announce the dates for publication of the draft and final voter lists.

After expiry of time limit for the enumeration, officials assigned the overall task of preparing the roll now have no job in hand as far as the schedule is concerned.

Nobody in the EC knows when it will set the dates for the next steps in the voter-listing as it waits for the outcome of the appeal filed against the January 4 High Court directives for revising the existing electoral roll.

The previous voter list was published a year before the election of 2001. But whether the list for the 2007 general election will be published on time is still uncertain.

"We don't know when the dates for publication of draft and final voter lists will be set as the matter is still pending with the court," a senior official of the EC Secretariat told The Daily Star yesterday.

A number of district election officers however told The Daily Star yesterday that they would still be working to complete the job the extended time limit for which ran out yesterday.

"Collection of information about the prospective voters who were left out had already stopped as the enumerators and supervisors were not given the remuneration for the work. And we are afraid a significant number of people eligible to vote could not make it on the draft list," a district election officer told The Daily Star, wishing anonymity.

The work of preparing the fresh voter list began on January 1 amid controversy and legal dispute. The draft roll was originally scheduled to be published on February 28 while the final list was to be published on June 1.

The entire field level task including preparation of the draft list was scheduled for completion by February 21.

But the EC had failed to complete the enumeration by January 31, the deadline set in the first schedule declared on December 7 last year.

Time limit for the task was first extended on January 31 for 20 more days. Later it was extended several times, but the dates for publication of the draft and final voter lists were not fixed.

Officials at the EC Secretariat had said the EC would not timetable the publication of the draft and final rolls before the result of the appeal comes out.

Meanwhile, after issuing a suo moto contempt rule against the chief election commissioner (CEC) and a ruling BNP lawmaker on Monday, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court said the CEC's leave to appeal petition against the High Court directives on voter list will remain adjourned until disposal of the contempt issue.

The next hearing on the matter will be held on April 9.

A source at the EC Secretariat said after publishing the draft list, the EC will need at least four months to publish the final roll. Two more stages like accepting objections and disposing those of by appointing revising authorities will follow. The commission in its original schedule had kept four months for these two jobs.