SC to hear fresh plea on voter deletion in Bengal SIR today

Kolkata: The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to examine a fresh plea by individuals from West Bengal whose names were removed from the electoral rolls during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process.

The matter was mentioned before a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi by senior advocate Menaka Guruswamy, who said the petition concerns people who had earlier voted but now find their names missing from the voters’ list.

“These are electors. They had voted earlier and now their documents have not been taken,” Guruswamy told the court while seeking urgent consideration of the issue.

The Chief Justice, however, questioned whether the Supreme Court could examine such challenges directly. “In the scheme of things, we cannot sit in appeal over the decisions of the judicial officers,” he observed.

Guruswamy responded that the appeals were maintainable. The Bench then said it would take up the matter on Tuesday, along with other cases related to the

SIR exercise in West Bengal. The revision of electoral rolls in the state has already been under the Supreme Court’s scrutiny.

On February 24, the court permitted the deployment of West Bengal civil judges in addition to 250 district judges to handle around 80 lakh claims and objections from people facing possible deletion from the voters’ list.