SC to hear petitions related to SIR of electoral rolls in West Bengal on Monday

The Supreme Court will hear on Monday petitions relating to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal which is going to polls later this month.

The matter will be heard by a Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi, which had on April 10 agreed to take up on April 13 a fresh petition along with other pending petition challenging the freezing of electoral rolls by the Election Commission ahead of the assembly elections to be held on April 23 and April 29, 2026.

The poll panel had frozen and finalised the electoral rolls on April 9 for the assembly constituencies going to polls in the first phase.  It means that no person whose name has been deleted in the SIR can be added to the voters list for the ensuing assembly polls.

The Bench will also hear the suo motu case related to the 'gherao' and illegal confinement of seven judicial officers engaged in the SIR exercise in Malda district of the state.

On April 6, the top court had ordered the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to take over cases related to the April 1 Malda incident, noting that the state bureaucracy's credibility was being lowered and politics was being injected into the West Bengal secretariat and government offices. It had slammed the state Chief Secretary, DGP and Malda District Magistrate and Superintendent of Police for lapses on their part and had asked them to apologise to the Calcutta High Court Chief Justice.

Exercising its plenary power under Article 142 of the Constitution, the Bench had transferred 12 cases related to the Malda incident, as rioting was not a scheduled offence under the NIA Act.

Around 60 lakh claims and objections of those removed from voters' lists in the SIR in West Bengal had been decided, the top court had said.

The Bench had asked the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court to constitute a three-member panel of former senior judges to frame uniform procedures for 19 tribunals for deciding appeals against deletions from the electoral rolls.