Supreme Court steps in; judicial officers will now join Bengal SIR process

21 FEBRUARY 2026

The Supreme Court took an “extraordinary” decision to involve the judiciary in the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal, saying the persistent “trust deficit” between the Mamata Banerjee government and the Election Commission (EC) has led to a “stalemate”, with time running out.
A three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant requested the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court to deploy a force of serving and retired judicial officers of West Bengal to take over the quasi-judicial task of Electoral Registration Officers/Assistant Electoral Registration Officers.
Their directions will be treated as directions of the Supreme Court, and the State administration must comply.
They would hear lakhs of voters who had been dropped from the draft roll and had received hearing notices after the EC found them “unmapped” or detected “logical discrepancies” in their personal details.
Now, with hardly a week to go for the claims/objections phase to end on February 28, the court found the State government and the EC exchanging recriminations over the quality and rank of personnel the State had deputed to the EC for the SIR exercise.
The case concerns the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal.
Many voters were marked as “unmapped” or found to have “logical discrepancies”.
Lakhs of names were dropped from the draft electoral roll.

Final Electorl Roll

The top court agreed with a suggestion from the EC that it should be allowed to publish the list of voters whose names have been cleared in the SIR process on February 28.
The rest could be included in a supplementary roll.
The Chief Justice said the electoral roll of names published on February 28 would not be treated as a final one. “It is an ongoing process,” the court said.
It posted the case on March 10, 2026.