New Delhi, Mar. 9: The Supreme Court will hear on Tuesday two petitions challenging the exclusion of names from the final electoral rolls published on February 28, despite the petitioners stating that their names figured in the electoral rolls prior to the SIR and that they had submitted all the required documents in support of their inclusion and continuation as voters.
A Bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi agreed to hear the petitions on Tuesday — March 10 — along with the main West Bengal SIR matter, after Senior Advocate Menaka Guruswamy mentioned the issue and urged the Bench to take up the petitions together with the main matter listed for hearing tomorrow (on Tuesday).
Before agreeing to hear the petitions tomorrow, Chief Justice Surya Kant asked the senior advocate whether the Supreme Court could directly entertain the pleas against the decisions of the authorities while bypassing the statutory remedies. However, the senior advocate responded that the orders had not been served on the affected petitioners and therefore they could not take recourse to the statutory remedies.
By its February 24 order, while permitting the Election Commission of India (ECI) to publish the final electoral roll on February 28, the Supreme Court had said that supplementary voter lists to be published later, after adjudication of claims and objections relating to persons in the “logical discrepancy” and “unmapped” categories, would be treated as part of the final electoral roll published on February 28, 2026.
The Court passed the order in exercise of its plenary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution after receiving a communication dated February 22 from the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court. The communication stated that given the enormity of the exercise of deciding claims and objections relating to nearly 50 lakh names in the “logical discrepancy” and “unmapped” categories, it would take around 80 days to complete the task.
Following this communication, the Supreme Court on February 24 relaxed its earlier order of February 20 and permitted the additional deployment of Civil Judges (Senior Division) and Civil Judges (Junior Division) with at least three years’ experience to assist in adjudicating claims and objections relating to voters placed in the “logical discrepancies” and “unmapped” categories.
The Court further directed that if the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court required more judicial officers, he could approach the Chief Justices of the High Courts of Orissa and Jharkhand to request serving or retired judicial officers of similar rank to assist in the SIR exercise. It requested the Chief Justices of the two High Courts to sympathetically and urgently consider such requests.
Earlier, on February 20, noting a “trust deficit” and lack of cooperation between the West Bengal government and the Election Commission of India (ECI), and terming the situation surrounding the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls as “extraordinary”, the Supreme Court had directed deployment of serving as well as former District or Additional District Judges to oversee adjudication of claims and objections relating to voters placed in the “logical discrepancies” category.
Picture credit social media
Pramod kumar is a Senior Journalist, Covering Supreem Court of India
