West Bengal SIR Hearing Updates: While hearing the pleas challenging the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls being undertaken in the state of West Bengal, the Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court to request few former CJs and two-three judges of the high court, preferably Calcutta or neighbouring states, to hear the appeal of those persons whose claim for inclusion has been rejected by the Judicial officers. The top court directed the ECI to issue a notification in consultation with CJ of Calcutta HC notifying the former CJ/judges as the appellate tribunal.
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice R Mahadevan and Justice Joymalya bagchi heard the matter today.
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Directions passed by Supreme Court: The bench passed the following directions today-
‘1) The ECI will ensure that no mandatory step which may cause disruption in the process will be introduced unless approved by CJ Calcutta HC.
2) The portal technical issues causing disruptions prior to March 7 2026 will be effectively addressed ensuring that no such disruptions take place.
3) New login IDs shall be created as and when required by the judicial officers without wasting any time.
4) During the course of hearing senior counsel for petitioners have pointed out- 1) mechanism of appeal by those persons whose claim for inclusion has been rejected by the JOs 2) publication of supplementary list particularly when more than 101600 objections have been disposed of.
As regard to the first issue, our order dated February 24 points out that the orders passed by the judicial officers will not be subjected to appeal before administrative/executive officers. That being so and what has been transpired during hearing the CJ of Calcutta may request some former CJ and two-three judges of the high court, preferably Calcutta or neighbouring states who shall be notified as the appellate tribunal. The ECI shall issue a notification in consultation with CJ of Calcutta HC notifying the former CJ/judges as the appellate tribunal.
Both sides shall be at liberty to approach the CJ of the high court for the purpose of publication of the supplementary list of the persons whose objections already stand disposed of. Once the CJ of the high court makes the recommendations to this effect, the ECI shall do the needful immediately.’
Previous hearings: Earlier the top court had allowed the deployment of judicial officers from Odisha and Jharkhand for completing the adjudication of claims and objections of persons included in the “logical discrepancy/unmapped category”. A bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi also said that the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court can depute civil judges, if needed.
On February 20, the court, while taking note of the “trust deficit” between the state government and the Election Commission of India (ECI), had directed deployment of serving and former district judges of West Bengal for deciding claims and objections.
“In order to ensure fairness in the adjudication of the genuineness of documents relied upon and consequential determination of inclusion or exclusion in the voter list and as agreed to by both sides, we are left hardly any option but to request the CJ of high court at Calcutta to spare some serving judicial officers along with former judicial officers at the rank of additional or district judges who can then in each district be requested to revisit/dispose of claims under the category of logical discrepancy,” the apex court had said.
