Full Breakdown
Supreme Court Defers Urgent Hearing on West Bengal Electoral-Roll Appeals Ahead of Bypolls
By Drooid · · How we work
Core Event
On September 28 2026 the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant, declined to list for urgent hearing a petition seeking a time-bound independent inquiry into the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal. The bench, which also included Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana, scheduled the matter for October 5, a day before the by-elections in Nandigram and Rejinagar on October 6. The CJI remarked that “these are only by-elections,” and the court did not advance the hearing.
Background & Context
The SIR exercise, undertaken across 20 states and union territories, resulted in the deletion of millions of voter names. In West Bengal the Election Commission reported 22,21,118 appeals by voters whose names had been removed and 16,10,311 appeals challenging inclusions. The backlog has persisted since the April-May 2026 state elections, when many deleted voters could not cast ballots.
Data & Statistics
- Total appeals filed in West Bengal tribunals: 38,31,429.
- Appeals by excluded voters: 22,21,118.
- Appeals against inclusion: 16,10,311.
- Decided appeals: 1,26,194.
- Pending appeals: 37,05,235, representing over 97 % of the total.
- Disposition rate: roughly 3 % resolved; 93 % of those resulted in inclusion.
- Backlog projection: Hindustan Times notes that at the current pace, clearing the 3.8 million pending appeals would take more than 12 years.
Official Statements & Responses
- Chief Justice Surya Kant: “These are only by-elections.”
- Petitioner Prasenjit Bose (West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee’s SIR panel chair) argued that the ECI’s special drive to re-enrol deleted voters via a revised Form 6 “nullifies the SIR process” and called for a stay on further SIR actions pending an independent inquiry.
- ECI affidavit: disclosed the backlog and expressed openness to increasing the number of appellate tribunals from 19 to 42.
Criticism & Opposition
Bose highlighted “serious deficiencies” in SIR implementation, noting that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally objected at least 14 times in the past ten months to poll-panel decisions, including those related to SIR. He said the parallel operation of appellate tribunals and the new Form 6 re-enrolment process is “not tenable,” and that the exclusion of roughly 22 lakh voters deprived them of voting rights in the 2026 Assembly elections.
Conflicting Reports & Gaps
- Appeals decided: Bar & Bench cites 1,26,194 decisions; Hindustan Times references “a little over 100,000.”
- Backlog size: The 3.8 million pending appeals figure differs slightly from the 38,31,429 total appeals reported by Bar & Bench.
- Resolution timeline: Estimates range from “more than 12 years” to an unspecified “present rate.”
What’s Next
The Supreme Court has set October 5 as the hearing date for the SIR petition, leaving the by-elections on October 6 to proceed without a court-ordered stay. The order also leaves open the possibility of future directives, such as expanding the number of appellate tribunals, should the parties raise the issue during the October 5 hearing.