3 months ago
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The Supreme Court of India connected Tuesday (March 10, 2026) directed the constitution of peculiar tribunals to determine connected appeals against exclusions from the electoral rotation during the West Bengal Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process.
A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant ordered the enactment of the tribunals aft reasoning that the decisions of judicial officers deployed successful the SIR workout arsenic Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) should not beryllium subjected to entreaty earlier immoderate enforcement oregon administrative authority.
The Supreme Court asked the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court to petition erstwhile Chief Justices and judges of High Courts to preside implicit the Benches of the appellate tribunals erstwhile they are notified by the Election Commission of India (ECI). The EC shall wage the retired judges an honorarium and screen the full expenses of the tribunals.
The apical tribunal concisely recorded the contents of a connection received from the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court that implicit 500 judicial officers from West Bengal and implicit 200 judicial officers from the neighbouring States of Odisha and Jharkhand were moving “day and night, adjacent connected Sundays and holidays” to perceive objections and claims from voters excluded from the electoral roll.
The Calcutta Chief Justice, the apical tribunal recorded, said that 10.16 lakh objections person been disposed of arsenic of March 9, 2026.
Supplementary list
The Bench further directed the EC to append the supplementary lists containing the names of voters cleared by the judicial officers to the last database published connected February 28. These supplementary lists would beryllium deemed to person been successful beingness from the day of merchandise of the last elector list.
The tribunal noted that the work of supplementary database should beryllium imminent considering the information that the judicial officers, acting arsenic EROs, person already disposed of implicit 10 lakh objections.
The tribunal added that the reasons for exclusion should beryllium instantly communicated to the electors acrophobic successful bid to facilitate the appellate process without delay.
On February 20, the apical tribunal had taken an “extraordinary” determination to impact the judiciary successful the SIR successful West Bengal, saying the persistent “trust deficit” betwixt the Mamata Banerjee authorities and the EC had led to a “stalemate”, with clip moving out.
Four days later, the tribunal had allowed much judicial officers to beryllium deployed, adjacent alerting the neighbouring States of Odisha and Jharkhand to spare their judges.
The Calcutta High Court Chief Justice had astatine the clip recovered implicit 50 lakh claims and objections raised by voters excluded connected grounds of logical discrepancies and mapping pending earlier the Electoral Registration Officers/Assistant Election Registration Officers (EROs/AEROs).
The tribunal had requested the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court to deploy a unit of serving and retired judicial officers of “impeccable integrity” successful West Bengal to instrumentality implicit the quasi-judicial task of EROs/AEROs.
They were assigned to perceive lakhs of voters who had recovered themselves purged from the West Bengal draught roll, and received proceeding notices aft the EC recovered them “unmapped” oregon detected “logical discrepancies” successful their idiosyncratic details. These discrepancies had included variations successful the spelling of names, age-gaps betwixt inter-generational household members, and the fig of children.
