The Supreme Court on Monday declined to advance the hearing of case concerning the pendency of appeals arising out the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal. .A Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana declined to advance the date of hearing. The request to urgently hear the case was made in view of the October 6 by-polls in Rejinagar and Nandigram assembly constituencies. "These are only by-elections, that’s all," CJI Kant remarked. The SIR appeals are pending before the appellate tribunals appointed on orders of the top court.The counsel who made the request for an urgent hearing of the matter said the case was listed for hearing on September 29 but is now tentatively showing as listed for October 5. "We are seeking urgent directions so that it can be listed before that. There are more than 18,000 appeals pending which have not been disposed of. These people did not take part in the first elections," the counsel said.The counsel added that this will be the second time when people will be missing out on voting. The Court then said the case will be listed on October 5..As of August 7, only 2% of the 38 lakh appeals filed by voters excluded from the electoral rolls were 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 West Bengal assembly elections held this year.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 response revealed that 37,27,838 appeals, or 97.83% of the total, were still pending, with only 1 in every 46 appeals decided so far..Lakhs of voters in West Bengal were prevented from exercising the right to vote in the recent assembly elections in West Bengal as they stood excluded from the electoral roll after the SIR. Their appeals remain pending before appellate tribunals set up on the orders of the Supreme Court, which earlier refused to halt the process.In May, the top court affirmed the ECI's power to conduct SIR of electoral rolls. However, it also said that the ECI can examine whether a person is an Indian citizen for the limited purpose of deciding whether that person should be included in voter rolls.In cases where the Commission is not satisfied that a person fulfils the statutory conditions for inclusion in the electoral rolls, it can refer such an individual to the competent authority of the Central government for adjudication in accordance with law, the Court had ruled..[Read Live Coverage]
