Supreme Court asks judicial officers to be deployed for West Bengal SIR

The Supreme Court on Friday (February 20, 2026) took an “extraordinary” decision to involve the judiciary in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal, saying the persistent “trust deficit” between the Mamata Banerjee government and the Election Commission (EC) has led to a “stalemate”, with time running out.

A three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant requested the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court to deploy a force of serving and retired judicial officers of West Bengal to take over the quasi-judicial task of Electoral Registration Officers/Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (EROs/AEROs). They would hear lakhs of voters who found themselves purged from the West Bengal draft roll, and had received hearing notices after the EC found them “unmapped” or detected “logical discrepancies” in their personal details.These discrepancies included variations in the spelling of names, age-gaps between inter-generational family members, and the number of children.

Now, with hardly a week to go for the claims/objections phase to end on February 28, the Supreme Court on Friday (February 20, 2026) found the Trinamool Congress government and the EC exchanging recriminations over the quality and rank of personnel the State had deputed to the EC for the SIR exercise. The past hearings had seen the court try to intervene and bring the “running dispute” between the two to an amicable end. Friday saw the court compelled to move in.

“The foremost and urgent issue revolves around the completion of SIR in West Bengal. An unfortunate blame-game is on. Allegations and counter-allegations are being traded between two Constitutional functionaries, namely the democratically elected State government and the Election Commission of India. The SIR process is stuck,” the Supreme Court summed up the crisis.

The court observed that a stalled SIR process would lead to “serious consequences” for lakhs in West Bengal whose citizenship was under scrutiny. The comment from the Bench about the necessity of getting the SIR process done came even as the very constitutionality of the exercise in the pilot case of Bihar is awaiting judgment.

The Bench asked the High Court Chief Justice to hold a meeting on February 21 with the State Election Commissioner, the West Bengal Chief Secretary, Director General of Police and the Advocate General of the State, to iron out a plan for the deployment of judicial officers, who should be in the rank of District of Additional District Judge. Their instructions would be deemed to be that of the Supreme Court, and the State/district administration would have to comply without demur.

“The circumstances being extraordinary, the inclusion of judicial officers is extraordinary in nature. It may have some impact on the pending court cases,” the Supreme Court acknowledged.

The Bench proposed shifting urgent cases pending with the deployed judicial officers to other courts for a period of a week or 10 days “by which the entire process [SIR] is required to be completed”.

The Supreme Court agreed with a suggestion from the EC that it should be allowed to publish the list of voters whose names have been cleared in the SIR process on February 28. The rest could be included in a supplementary roll.

“There is no point having the process stuck in one place. Ninety-five per cent of the work is over. A list of names already cleared can be published on February 28. Names can be included in the electoral roll until the last date of nomination. How can this prejudice anyone?” senior advocate Dama Seshadri Naidu, for the EC, submitted.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, for West Bengal, said such a publication on February 28 may lead to a “law-and-order” situation.

But the Chief Justice said the electoral roll of names published on February 28 would not be treated as a final one. “It is an ongoing process,” the court said.

The court has further sought a supplementary status report on allegations of 28 instances of violence in connection with the SIR process.

It posted the case on March 10, 2026.