As of August 7, only 2% of the 38 lakh appeals filed by voters excluded from the electoral rolls prepared after West Bengal’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) have been decided by appellate tribunals since March 2026..According to a Right to Information (RTI) response from the office of the Chief Electoral Officer of West Bengal, of the appeals decided, 75,443 resulted in voters being included in the electoral roll, while 7,339 resulted in exclusion. In other words, 91.13% of the decided appeals resulted in inclusion. These voters were not allowed to cast votes during the recent West Bengal assembly elections..The RTI response was provided in response to Congress MP Isha Khan Choudhury's application. He had sought information on the appeals arising from the SIR exercise. The figures provide a district-wise and gender-wise picture of the electoral rolls alongside the status of the appellate process.The response shows that 37,27,838 appeals, or 97.83% of the total, are still pending, with only 1 in every 46 appeals decided so far..The numbers came up before the Supreme Court on Tuesday in a matter concerning the functioning of the SIR appellate tribunals.A Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to provide details of the pending appeals and the nature of the relief sought in them..The RTI response also showed how the SIR changed the size of West Bengal’s electoral roll. The State had 7,60,10,006 electors in the 2024 roll. By February 28, 2026, the final SIR roll had 6,44,52,609 electors, which is a fall of 1,15,57,397, or 15.21%.The reduction was spread across both male and female voters. The number of male electors fell by 58,02,457, or 15.03%, from 3,86,13,415 to 3,28,10,958. Female electors declined by 57,54,317, or 15.39%, from 3,73,94,818 to 3,16,40,501.The decline was proportionally higher among third-gender electors. Their numbers fell from 1,773 to 1,150, a reduction of 623, or 35.14%, ..Notably, the decline has not been uniform across the State. Districts of Kolkata South and Maldah recorded the largest proportional falls, with their electoral rolls shrinking by more than 30%. Kolkata South lost 2,90,610 electors, or 32.29%, falling from 9,00,052 in 2024 to 6,09,442 in the final SIR roll. Maldah saw a reduction of 10,01,054 electors, or 31.69%, from 31,59,130 to 21,58,076.Kolkata North and Uttar Dinajpur also recorded reductions of more than a quarter of their 2024 electorates, at 30.39% and 27.92% respectively. Murshidabad's electoral roll fell by 13,27,896, or 23.29%, while Paschim Bardhaman recorded an 18.62% reduction.At the other end of the spectrum, Purba Medinipur recorded the lowest proportional reduction, with its electorate falling by 1,67,902, or 3.97%. Bankura saw a decline of 4.64%, while Paschim Medinipur recorded a 5.75% reduction.In absolute numbers, North 24 Parganas recorded the largest reduction, with 14,44,123 fewer electors than in the 2024 roll. Murshidabad followed with 13,27,896 fewer electors and South 24 Parganas with 12,85,364 fewer..The plea before the Supreme Court by Congress member Prasenjit Bose submitted that the SIR exercise resulted in the deletion of more than 90.8 lakh electors, of whom 27.16 lakh names were deleted after adjudication. In March, the Supreme Court had directed the constitution of 19 appellate tribunals to hear appeals against such deletions.According to the plea, only around 7 lakh of the 27 lakh voters whose names were deleted after adjudication, appealed against their exclusion.The application also referred to an April 13 Supreme Court order recording that more than 34 lakh appeals had been filed before the tribunals. These comprised appeals against exclusion and appeals by objectors against the inclusion of voters, including ECI officials challenging inclusions made by adjudicating authorities.The petitioner cited a report quoting a West Bengal government official as saying that more than 20 lakh appeals had been filed by the Election Commission against the inclusion of voters. The official said that another 7 lakh appeals were from deleted voters, while some were filed by individuals challenging the inclusion of other voters.Therefore, Bose has sought a category-wise break-up of the pending appeals, including whether they were filed by electors, ECI officials or other objectors..West Bengal SIR: Supreme Court asks ECI for data on appeals decided by appellate tribunals
