The Supreme Court assured Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee on Monday that it would examine her claims that lakhs of deletions in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) “materially affected” results in the recently-concluded Assembly elections in West Bengal.
This is the first Supreme Court hearing in the West Bengal SIR case after the elections, which saw the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) trounce the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and debut in power. BJP secured 207 seats in the 294-seat Assembly, while TMC won 80 seats. The State had registered a record voter turnout of above 90 percent in the polls.
Appearing before a Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi, senior advocate Kalyan Bandhopadhyay, representing the former Chief Minister and other party leaders, said in as many as 31 seats the victory margins of the BJP were less than the number of votes deleted during the SIR.
“I have prepared a chart. I just want to give you an impression of what I am saying. In one seat, the margin was 862 and 5432 votes were under adjudication in appeals before the tribunals. Your Lordships had said that we could approach this court if such a situation happens,” Mr. Bandhopadhyay said. As on May 11, voters had filed over 34 lakh appeals in 19 Appellate Tribunals against their exclusion from the electoral roll on the ground of ‘logical discrepancies’ in their personal details. ‘Logical discrepancy’, as a category of exclusion from the electoral roll, was unique to West Bengal.
Tribunals could adjudicate only a few thousand appeals in time for polling in the two-phased Assembly elections. Though the apex court had ordered the constitution of these tribunals on March 11, they had started functioning only by April 13. The top court had even directed that even those voters cleared by the tribunals as of April 21 and April 27 - two days before the first and second phases of polling - should be allowed to vote. However, a substantial number of appeals had remained unresolved, or even unheard.
“About results having been materially affected due to the deletions which are under adjudication, we require you to file an application for the issue to be taken up by us,” Justice Bagchi addressed Bandhopadhyay. Senior advocate Menaka Guruswamy, also for TMC leaders, said the “sense was that the adjudication of the pending appeals would take four or more years”.
Bandhopadhyay pointed to the fact that one of the more prominent judges appointed to the tribunals, former Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court, Justice TS Sivagnanam, has resigned. It was reported that he had cleared 1,777 SIR-appeals before putting in his papers.
“What can we do if a former Chief Justice wants to leave?” Chief Justice Kant reacted. Justice Bagchi said the apex court would request the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court for information about the pending appeals before the tribunals.
“On the pending appeals, we will seek a report from the Chief Justice of the High Court. Then, we will take stock as to how and by what time the appeals could be resolved,” Justice Bagchi observed. The CJI said the focus was now to improve the mechanism for adjudication of the appeals.
Senior advocate Dama Seshadri Naidu, for the Election Commission, said the TMC leaders could either challenge the results by way of election petitions, or, if they had grievances about the SIR, they could approach the Supreme Court claiming lapses, in which case, the Election Commission reserved the right to respond. The Supreme Court, meanwhile, gave the National Investigation Agency two months to complete its probe into the case of seven judicial officers, deployed for SIR work, gheraoed in Malda on April 1, ahead of the elections.
Published on May 11, 2026