The Supreme Court on Friday sought responses from the Election Commission of India (ECI), the West Bengal government and the state’s Chief Electoral Officer on a petition seeking a time-bound mechanism for deciding appeals filed by people whose names were left out of the electoral rolls during the state’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR).
A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohan, issued notice on the plea and indicated that it may take up the matter before July 25.
The petition, filed by Prasenjit Bose, chairperson of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee’s SIR Committee, contended that the appellate process has moved at an extremely slow pace. According to the petitioner, only around 38,000 appeals have been decided out of nearly 34 lakh filed so far.
Appearing for Bose, Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, assisted by Advocate Neha Rathi, told the court that appellate tribunals had restored names to the electoral rolls in nearly 70 per cent of the cases decided so far. He argued that a simplified process with minimal documentation could substantially speed up disposal.
The petition also sought greater transparency in the exercise, urging the authorities to publish the standard operating procedure governing appeals and disclose relevant data on their progress.
Sankaranarayanan further submitted that several welfare-related government orders issued since May 2026, including those concerning the public distribution system, Annapurna Yojana and caste verification, could adversely affect people whose names were removed from the electoral rolls.
He argued that many of those excluded belong to economically weaker and marginalised sections and could risk losing access to welfare benefits.
The Bench, however, reminded the parties that its May 27 judgment in the Bihar SIR case had clearly held that data collected during the electoral revision could be used only for election-related purposes.
The court noted that such information could not be relied upon for implementing welfare schemes.
Justice Bagchi also observed that the earlier ruling had made it clear that the Election Commission could not use SIR data to determine a person’s citizenship. If any such issue arises, he said, the Commission must refer the matter to the appropriate government authority for adjudication under the Citizenship Act.
Taking note of the issues raised, the Bench agreed to hear the matter at an early date.
