The Supreme Court on Tuesday was told that 31 lakh out of the 38 lakh appeals (nearly 80%) pending in West Bengal SIR appellate tribunals are filed challenging the inclusion of persons in the electoral rolls. In other words, only 7 lakh appeals are filed by persons who have been excluded from the electoral rolls after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in the State.

This means that a major chunk of the appeals burdening the tribunals are seeking disenfranchisement of the persons.

Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan informed the Court of these statistics on the basis of a reply received by a Member of Parliament under the Right to Information Act.

Sankaranarayanan, who described the information as "appalling", said that it should have actually been furnished by the Election Commission of India to the Court, and it has surfaced only due to an RTI application by an MP. He further informed that out of the 83,000 appeals against exclusions so far decided, over 75,000 have been allowed, which means nearly 90% of the decided appeals were in favour of voters.

Before a bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana, Sankaranarayanan submitted :

"We fortunately have the info. It's an RTI reply given to an MP. Absolutely appalling. Total appeals submitted -38 lakh 10 thousand. So far, about 83000 or so are decisions. See the consequence. Included in e-roll: 75,443. Were it not for the setting up of Tribunals, they would have been disenfranchised! 75,443. have come in. Jalpaiguri - 665 included in e-roll. 0 excluded. Of the total no. of appeals filed, Only 7 lakh appeals were filed by individuals who were removed. Others are filed by the ECI themselves or objectors to inclusions. This lion's share of appeals seeking disenfranchisement can't burden this Tribunal in priority. Let the Tribunals prioritize those who were excluded. There is a track record of 95% of them being directed to be included eventually," he submited.

The bench expressed surprise at the date. "Very large chunk of appeals are for inclusions," Justice Bagchi noted. "It is so shocking; this is the Commission were are seeking to trust," Sankaranarayanan submitted.

Sankaranarayanan proposed that the appellate tribunals be asked to prioritise the 7 lakh appeals which have been filed by persons excluded from the electoral rolls. Since the Kolkata and Howrah Municipal elections are due in December this year, the appeals from those constituencies can be prioritised, he further suggested.

The bench then pointed out that it has sought data on the appeal disposals in another petition, and can examine the need for creation of more tribunals. Sankaranarayanan submitted that there was no need for creation of additional tribunals, if the appeals filed by excluded persons are prioritised. The persons objecting to inclusions have remedies under the Representation of the People Act, he added, which they can avail, instead of burdening the SIR appellate tribunals, which were created by the Supreme Court to provide timely relief to excluded voters.

The bench then proceeded to pass an order directing the ECI to file an affidavit specifying :

1. Number of appeals pending in the Tribunals?

2. A break-up of the appeals filed at the instance of the excluded persons, and the appeals against inclusions.

3. How many appeals have so far been disposed of, including the nature of relief sought in those appeals?

4. How many appeals have been allowed and what consequential steps are being taken for updating the electoral rolls pursuant to such orders.

The ECI has also been asked to explain if any additional tribunals are required, and also the steps taken to streamline the disposals. Senior Advocate Dama Seshadri Naidu, for the Election Commission, said that the ECI had met with the Tribunal members recently, and agreed to apprise the Court of the requisite information. He has also been asked to get instructions on the RTI reply received by the MP.

Justice Bagchi said that depending on the break-up, some directions can be issued to prioritise, as it was exclusion which was causing an immediate violation of a person's rights.

Winning marging less than voter deletions in 31 constituencies: TMC

During the hearing, Senior Advocate Kalyan Bandhopadhyay, for a Trinamool Congress member, submitted that an application has been filed pointing out that in 31 constituencies, the winning margin of the BJP against the TMC was less than the number of votes deleted. To illustrate, in AC-145, the margin of loss was 401, and the deletions were 8785. In another constituency, the loss was by 316 votes, whereas the deletions were more.

"Can the Court direct fresh elections?" CJI Surya Kant asked. The CJI also sought to know if election petitions have been filed in respect of any of the 31 constituencies. Bandhopadhyay replied that only in some election petitions have been filed.

Justice Bagchi asked how many of those deleted persons have filed appeals against exclusions. If the person has accepted the deletion, then the exercise would be academic, the Judge said. "So what we need to see is, let us say 100 people have been deleted, and the winning margin is 50, and the number of deleted persons filing appeals is 60 or 70, then the challenge to deletion becomes substantial. When the election result is subject to a decision by us, in a particular case, it may become very relevant," Justice Bagchi said. Bandhopadhyay replied that the ECI has not furnished the data regarding the assembly-wise appeals. "The difficulty we are facing is ECI is not giving data in public domain. I am not getting any statistics," he said.

One person lost by 15,000 votes and the deletions were 27,000 in the Murshidabad district, he said. He claimed that deletions were targeting one community. He requested the Court to seek a report from the ECI on the number of appeals filed from the 31 constituencies and their disposals.

The bench said that it will not confine itself to only these 31 constituencies and will examine the entire pending appeals to ensure their timely disposal.

Justice Bagchi said that the Court's larger concern was on the expeditious disposal of the appeals.

"We are with you on this point that before the Parliament election comes, everything must be sorted out," CJI said.

Case no. – W.P.(C) No. 1089/2025