Last Updated on February 5, 2026 12:50 am by INDIAN AWAAZ
Staff Reporter
The Supreme Court has issued notices to the Election Commission and West Bengal’s chief electoral officer. This follows a plea from Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee concerning the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. The court is addressing concerns about alleged wrongful deletions of voters. A hearing is scheduled for February 9.
The Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V M Pancholi told the Election Commission of India (ECI) to take care while sending notices to voters on the basis of name mismatches. The court will hear the matter on Feb 9.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday appeared in the Supreme Court for the hearing of her plea against the Special Intensive Revision of the state’s electoral rolls.
Speaking in the top court, the TMC chief accused the Election Commission of colluding with the BJP government at the Centre and targeting West Bengal, asking, “Why the same yardstick is not applied in Assam?” which will also go to polls this year.
Mamata Banerjee further alleged that the SIR exercise is being carried out only to the exclusion of voters and not their inclusion. “This SIR is for deletion, not inclusion,” alleging that lakhs of voters had been wrongly flagged under “logical discrepancies”.
During the hearing, Mamata Banerjee sought five minutes to explain the irregularities and difficulties faced by citizens during the state’s electoral roll revision. The CJI allowed her 15 minutes to speak on the issue.
“We are not getting justice anywhere. I have written several letters to ECI,” she told the bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi.
Mamata Banerjee further alleged that many living persons have been declared dead by the EC during the ongoing SIR process and said, “EC is not allowing Aadhaar and seeking other documents also from voters for electoral roll revision.”
At the onset of the hearing, Senior advocate Shyam Divan, appearing for Mamata Banerjee, highlighted “a huge number of unmapped voters” and alleged that the Election Commission is issuing notices to hundreds of people due to logical discrepancies, saying that the names in most of such cases “are misspelt and can be rectified easily.”
“58 lakh voters had already been deleted and around 88 lakh voters were flagged, while nearly 3 lakh objections were still pending, even as the final publication of the rolls was scheduled within 11 days,” Banerjee’s lawyer said, adding that “hardly any time is left for remedial measures.”
The lawyer further argued that common Bengali surname variations such as Datta and Dutta, Roy and Ray, Ganguly and Ganguli were being treated as mismatches. “These are not spelling mistakes. These are local dialect differences which happen across India. A daughter goes to her in-laws’ house after marriage and uses her husband’s surname. They (ECI) are removing her. Is that a reason to delete her name?” Banerjee asked.
The Court, however, assuring protection to genuine voters, said, “We will ensure that no innocent citizen is left out,” CJI Surya Kant observed. The CJI added that minor spelling or dialectal differences cannot be grounds for exclusion. The Bench clarified that names of deceased or disqualified persons would, however, have to be removed as per law. “Dead persons or disqualified voters, whatever may be the ground, will have to be deleted,” the court said.