'Can Wait, Nothing Happening Now': Supreme Court On Voter List Revision In West Bengal
The Election Commission of India is planning to undertake special intensive revision of voter lists in other states including West Bengal, where assembly elections are due in 2026
The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it will not be taking up the issue regarding the voter list revision in West Bengal, while it was hearing the matter of the special intensive revision, or SIR, in poll-bound Bihar.
After this revision of voter rolls in Bihar, the Election Commission of India (ECI) is planning to undertake a similar exercise in other states including West Bengal, where assembly elections are due in 2026.
As the row over the SIR, which has been challenged in the Supreme Court escalated, the bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi said the Election Commission (EC) has the residual power to conduct such an exercise as it deemed fit.
On West Bengal, it said the state 'can wait for the time being" as 'nothing is happening there now". According to a report in Live Law, senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) in the Bihar case, independently made submissions on behalf of Bengal. He told the court that the chief electoral officer of West Bengal had said the state was ready for SIR, even without any consultation with the government, the report said.
Live Law report.
This was also in response to senior advocate Kalyan Banerjee – a Trinamool Congress MP – who raised the issue. A day ago, he submitted that three women had attempted death by suicide (self-immolation) in front of the Calcutta High Court over apprehension of being deleted from the voter list.
'It's very difficult for us to examine individual claims. We will go into broad principles, which will be the same for states, subject to local conditions," the bench was quoted.
In the Bihar SIR matter, the Supreme Court observed that electoral rolls cannot remain 'static" and there is bound to be a revision. It said the expanded list of acceptable documents of identity from seven to 11 of voter list was in fact 'voter-friendly and not exclusionary".
'…To our mind, the electoral rolls can never be static. There is bound to be revision," the bench said, 'otherwise, how will the poll panel delete the names of those who are dead, migrated or shifted to other constituencies?"
Leaders of opposition parties, including the RJD and Congress as well as the NGO, ADR, have challenged the electoral roll revision exercise in Bihar.
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