SC notice to EC on pleas against  SIR in Bengal, Puducherry & TN

The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notice to the Election Commission on petitions challenging the special intensive revision (SIR) exercise in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and West Bengal.

A Bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi asked the EC to respond to the petitions filed by the DMK, the CPM and the West Bengal unit of the Congress and Trinamool Congress challenging the October 27 notification of the poll panel in this regard and posted the matter for further hearing on November 26.

The top court asked the Madras and Calcutta high courts to keep in abeyance proceedings on petitions challenging the SIR of the electoral rolls in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.

It also agreed to hear an intervention application filed by the AIADMK in support of the SIR in Tamil Nadu as a "legitimate and necessary" exercise to uphold the sanctity of elections and prevent voter fraud.

On October 27, the EC announced the conduct of the second phase of the SIR exercise in 12 states and Union territories between November and February next year.

The 12 states and union territories where SIR exercise is being conducted are: Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Puducherry, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala and West Bengal are scheduled to go to polls in 2026. Assam, where polls are also due in 2026, SIR of the electoral rolls will be announced separately.

The second phase of the SIR exercise began on November 4 and will continue till December 4. The EC will release the draft electoral rolls on December 9 and the final electoral rolls will be published on February 7.

While the Election Commission's June 24, 2025 notification on SIR was already under challenge, the DMK has challenged the poll panel’s October 27, 2025 notification for SIR, describing it as “constitutional overreach” on the ground that the poll panel lacked the authority to implement it.

The Justice Surya Kant-led Bench had earlier refused to stay the EC’s SIR exercise in Bihar.

Asserting that the Bihar SIR exercise was "accurate", the poll panel had on October 16 told the top court that the petitioner NGOs and political parties were merely content with making "false allegations" to discredit the exercise. Not a single appeal had been filed by any voter against alleged name deletion since the publication of the final electoral roll, it said.