The Supreme Court today declined urgent hearing of the West Bengal SIR matter ahead of the upcoming Rejinagar and Nandigram bypolls on October 6.

The matter was mentioned before a bench led by CJI Surya Kant for urgent hearing. The counsel said that the matter was slated to be heard on September 29, but it has not come in the cause list. He said that the next date is being shown as October 5, but the Rejinagar bypolls begin on October 6.

The counsel urged that there are thousands of appeals pending against voter exclusions and highlighted that many of these people were not able to vote in the earlier elections as well.

The CJI however replied, "these are just bye-elections". He added that the Court will hear the matter on October 5.