Over 37 lakh appeals pending after Bengal SIR: EC tells Supreme Court | India News
NEW DELHI: The Election Commission on Friday told the Supreme Court that over 37 lakh appeals against the deletion or inclusion of names in West Bengal electoral rolls under the Special Intensive Revision remain pending.The poll panel told the apex court in its response affidavit that tribunals appointed by the court have disposed of only about 1.02 lakh of the 38.20 lakh appeals filed so far.This comes after a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymala Bagchi and V Mohana sought the poll panel’s response to a plea seeking disclosure of assembly constituency-wise data on claims and objections filed by voters whose names were deleted during the SIR exercise.A total of 38,20,683 appeals had been filed against orders relating to the SIR of electoral rolls. Of these, 1,02,231 appeals had been disposed of, leaving 37,18,452 pending, the poll panel said.The affidavit, however, did not provide a break-up of the appeals filed by electors whose names were deleted and those filed against the inclusion of names in the electoral rolls.Prasenjit Bose, who filed the affidavit, claimed that more than 58 lakh electors were excluded during the enumeration phase of the SIR exercise in West Bengal.He added that while 9.64 lakh applications for inclusion (Forms 6 and 6A) and over 99,000 applications for deletion (Form 7) were received during the claims and objections phase, only around 1.82 lakh additions were reflected in the final electoral roll published on February 28.On August 25, the top court directed the Election Commission to submit data on the pendency and disposal of appeals before tribunals challenging exclusion or inclusion in electoral rolls.Observing that these appeals needed to be adjudicated in a time-bound manner, the bench had asked the poll panel to explain what steps were being taken to streamline the mechanism for disposing of pending appeals and how many additional tribunals were required.
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The EC data submitted to the court showed that 34.13 lakh Form 6 applications had been filed between December 17, 2025, when the draft electoral roll was published, and August 7, 2026.Form 6 is the statutory application for inclusion of a name in the electoral roll.On April 24, the apex court asked the appellate tribunals to give out-of-turn hearings to those who made a case for urgent hearing against deletion from electoral rolls after the SIR.Approximately 700 judicial officers from West Bengal and neighbouring Odisha and Jharkhand were deployed to deal with around 60 lakh claims and objections.Later, the chief justice of the Calcutta high court, on the direction of the top court, set up 19 tribunals headed by former high court chief justices and judges to decide the appeals.
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