West Bengal SIR: Supreme Court mulls having tribunals first hear deleted voters seeking re-inclusion

The Supreme Court on Friday (October 9, 2026) orally suggested that lakhs of voters seeking inclusion in the West Bengal electoral roll deserved to be heard first, while appeals for exclusion pending before the Appellate Tribunals could be heard last.

An affidavit filed by the Election Commission of India (EC) in the Supreme Court in September 2026 revealed that more than 22 lakh voters purged from the electoral roll during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in West Bengal, on grounds such as “logical discrepancies,” had filed appeals challenging their exclusion.

The EC affidavit had said that 16.10 lakh appeals had been filed against inclusion. The poll body had said a total of 38.31 lakh appeals were filed in the tribunals in the State.

The 19 Appellate Tribunals are struggling under a massive backlog, with 37.05 lakh of the 38.31 lakh appeals currently stuck in limbo. At the present pace, clearing the backlog will take more than 12 years, one of the petitioners, Congress leader Prasenjit Bose, has argued.

So far, the Appellate Tribunals, according to EC statistics, have disposed of only 3% of the total appeals filed, and 93% of these disposed-of appeals have resulted in the inclusion of electors in the electoral rolls.

In an oral mentioning, senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for Mr. Bose, and advocates Prashant Bhushan and Neha Rathi, representing five disentitled voters, said the disentitled voters in the State had already missed both the Assembly elections in May 2026 and the recent by-elections.

The lawyers said these voters should be allowed to cast their vote in the Municipal elections scheduled for November 2026, regardless of whether their appeals were pending before the tribunals.

“Over one lakh appeals were decided by the tribunals in the past six months, of which 93% have been ruled in favour of the deleted voters, ordering their re-inclusion in the voter list. Taking this fact into consideration, voters whose appeals for re-inclusion are pending should be allowed to vote in the municipal elections,” Mr. Bhushan said.

He said the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and Howrah Municipal Corporation elections were coming up soon, and that voters in these areas whose appeals were pending before the tribunals should have their cases decided on a priority basis.

“We are already working on the issue of the pending appeals. We will find a via media (middle path) solution. There are appeals by persons seeking inclusion. They will be taken first… first will be for inclusions,” Chief Justice Surya Kant said orally.

Justice Joymalya Bagchi said the tribunals were “taking time” on the appeals. He remarked that the Court had received feedback intrinsically related to issues such as the architecture of the software, “which we need to thrash out” with the EC. “You see, technology, method and fairness has to match,” Justice Bagchi said, on the working of the Appellate Tribunals in West Bengal.

“But we have missed one election, we are going to miss another,” Mr. Sankaranarayanan said. Justice Bagchi said the Court understood the predicament. “We will make appropriate interventions,” he said.

The Court said the case would most likely be listed on October 16, 2026, on a priority basis, but said October 29, 2026, was a more convenient date.