The Supreme Court on Monday granted the Election Commission of India (ECI) one week to file its response to allegations of widespread irregularities in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal. The directions came while hearing separate petitions filed by Trinamool Congress MPs Derek O’Brien and Dola Sen.
A Bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi posted the matter for further hearing on January 19. While counsel for the ECI sought two weeks to submit a response, the Bench indicated it was inclined to allow only a week for the filing.
Appearing for O’Brien, senior advocate Kapil Sibal alleged that the poll body was following irregular procedures in communicating instructions to field staff. He contended that informal modes such as WhatsApp messages were being used, in deviation from prescribed rules. “Very weird procedures are being followed in West Bengal. The authorities are acting on the basis of WhatsApp messages. There are logical discrepancies…,” Sibal submitted, adding that nearly 1.36 crore voters could face exclusion.
In his plea, O’Brien also sought an extension of the SIR exercise in Bengal beyond January 15, warning that the current process could lead to large-scale disqualification of electors. He alleged that the ECI had identified “logical discrepancies” in the enumeration forms of around 1.36 crore voters, triggering notices without adequate explanation.
The petition challenged the extensive use of WhatsApp by the ECI to issue directions to booth-level officers (BLOs) and other personnel, arguing that such communication runs contrary to established procedures that mandate official circulars and written orders for election-related instructions.
“The Election Commission of India is acting colourably and has not even disclosed the list of such 1.36 Crore Electors against whom the Election Commission has purportedly found logical discrepancies. Such categorisation has reportedly resulted in over 1.36 crore voters being labelled as having ‘logical discrepancies’ and subjected to notice issuance without clear explanation of the specific defect in each case,” the petition stated.
According to the plea, field-level reports reveal multiple procedural and operational concerns arising from the manner in which these cases were initiated. It was claimed that a large number of affected electors are women whose surnames changed after marriage, leading to misclassification by the algorithm used in the revision process. The petition further alleged that over 90 per cent of the cases involved name mismatches attributable to algorithmic errors, with minority communities being disproportionately impacted.
The MPs also alleged that the draft electoral roll, published on December 16, 2025, reflected the deletion of 58,20,898 names without prior notice or personal hearings. The total number of voters, they claimed, dropped sharply from 7,66,37,529 after the Special Summary Revision of 2025 to 7,08,16,616 in the draft roll.
Additionally, the petition pointed out that in several Assembly constituencies, deletions of voters categorised as absentee, shifted, dead, or duplicate (ASDD) were being processed centrally and marked en masse as “Disposed – Form 7” on the ERO Net Portal, raising concerns over transparency and due process.
