The Supreme Court agreed with the EC’s proposal that the list of voters whose names were cleared in the February 28 SIR process should be allowed to be published. The rest could be included in the supplementary list. File | Photo credit: PTI
The Supreme Court on Friday (February 20, 2026) took an “extraordinary” decision to involve the judiciary in the ongoing special intensive review (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal, saying the lingering “lack of trust” between the Mamata Banerjee government and the Election Commission (EC) had led to a “stalemate” over time.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant asked the 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 heard thousands of voters who found themselves purged from West Bengal’s draft list and received hearing notices after the EC found them “unmapped” or found “logical inconsistencies” in their personal details. These discrepancies included variations in the spelling of names, age differences between intergenerational family members, and the number of children.
Now, barely a week to the end of the claim/objection phase on February 28, the Supreme Court on Friday (February 20, 2026) found that the Trinamool Congress government and the EC were exchanging flak over the quality and rank of personnel assigned by the state to the EC for the SIR exercise. In past hearings, the court tried to intervene and bring the “ongoing dispute” between them to an amicable end. On Friday, the court was forced to move.
“The foremost and pressing issue revolves around the completion of SIR in West Bengal. An unfortunate blame game. Accusations and counter-accusations are being traded between two constitutional functionaries, namely the democratically elected state government and the Election Commission of India. The SIR process has stalled,” the Supreme Court summed up the crisis.
The court observed that the suspended SIR process would lead to “serious consequences” for lakhs of people in West Bengal whose citizenship was under scrutiny. The comment from the Bench on the need to complete the SIR process came even as the very constitutionality of the exercise in the Bihar pilot case is pending judgment.
The bench asked the chief justice to hold a meeting with the state election commissioner, West Bengal chief secretary, director general of police and state advocate general on February 21 to finalize the plan for deployment of judicial officers who should be of the rank of district district judge. Their directions would be treated as directions of the Supreme Court and the state/district administration would have to obey without objection.
“Due to the extraordinary circumstances, the inclusion of court officials is of an extraordinary nature. It may have some impact on ongoing court cases,” the Supreme Court admitted.
The bench suggested shifting urgent cases pending with judicial officers deployed to other courts for a period of one week or 10 days, “until the entire process (SIR) needs to be completed.
The Supreme Court agreed with the EC’s proposal that the list of voters whose names were cleared in the February 28 SIR process should be allowed to be published. The rest could be included in the supplementary list.
“There is no point in the process getting stuck at one place. Ninety-five percent of the work is done. The list of already cleared names can be released on February 28. The names can be included in the voter’s list up to the last date of nomination. How can this harm anyone?” submitted by Senior Advocate Dama Seshadri Naidu for the EC.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal of West Bengal said such a publication on February 28 could lead to a “law and order” situation.
However, the Chief Justice said the list of names released on February 28 would not be considered final. “It is an ongoing process,” the court said.
The court further requested a supplementary report on the status of allegations of 28 cases of violence in connection with the SIR process.
She published the case on March 10, 2026.
Published – 20 February 2026 21:40 IST