Supreme Court seeks EC reply on TMC MPs’ plea on irregularities
Supreme Court seeks EC reply on TMC MPs’ plea on irregularities
M.U.H
13/01/202618
The Supreme Court on Monday sought the response of the Election Commission of India (ECI) to applications filed by Trinamool Congress leaders seeking an extension of the January 15 deadline for submission of claims and objections over 5.8 million voters deleted from the draft roll following the special intensive revision (SIR) exercise in the poll-bound state.
Considering the urgency in the matter, a bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and justice Joymalya Bagchi directed the ECI to furnish its response within a week and posted the matter for hearing on January 19.
The applications were filed by TMC MPs Derek O Brien and Dola Sen in their pending petitions challenging the SIR in the state. They accused the ECI of adopting procedures in sharp distinction to their own orders followed in Bihar and apprehended that the mass deletions are on account of a digital software rather than field verification involving electoral registration officers (ERO).
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Brien, said, “A unique procedure is being used in West Bengal. WhatsApp messages are being sent to convey informal instructions to field-level officials, and citing illogical discrepancies in voter details, notices have been issued to 13.6 million voters.”
Senior advocate Kalyan Banerjee, appearing along with Sibal, said, “Notice has been served upon individuals asking them why your father has six children.”
The bench said that it will not examine individual cases but will seek a response from the ECI on all aspects raised in the two applications.”
The poll panel, represented by advocate Eklavya Dwivedi, sought two weeks to file a response. But the bench directed, “We will take up this matter next Monday. Let the reply to both the applications be filed within this week.”
Brien, in his plea filed through advocate Vivek Singh, said, “The ECI has created and deployed a new category described as ‘logical discrepancies’ without any written order or guideline duly published in the manner prescribed by law, to issue or decide to issue notices to 1.36 crore electors without any statutory basis.”
This category identified alleged mismatches or anomalies in voter details, including spelling variations, inconsistencies in parental or age information, and other data irregularities identified by system-generated algorithms.
The application said that an “undisclosed” software has been used to carry out the mapping process in many cases, instead of on-ground verification by booth level officers (BLO). “If this is indeed the case, it represents a shocking departure from the ECI’s own SIR orders, which do not contain even a whisper of this process being carried out by a software instead of a physical check.” No such process was adopted in the state of Bihar, where the digitisation exercise was carried out under direct supervision of BLOs, thereby ensuring accuracy and data integrity, it added.
The draft electoral roll was published in West Bengal on December 16, 2025, and 58,20,898 names were deleted as being absent, shifted, dead and duplicate voters. Following SIR, 7,08,16,616 voters were on the draft roll released by ECI, which marked a decline from 7,66,37,529 voters after the Special Summary Revision of 2025.
The TMC leaders, in their plea, highlighted another aspect of informal instructions being passed on by ECI to the field workers through WhatsApp messages in WhatsApp groups and by oral directions.
“Such casual communication channels for such a critical exercise, which strikes at the root of democracy by arbitrarily fixing a palpably erroneous voters list for an election, has been unheard of in the country and reeks of arrogance and devoid of legal legitimacy, authenticity, or any audit trail,” the application said.
Such informal instructions were alleged to be inconsistent with the formal instructions issued by the ECI, as both Brien and Sen urged a direction to ECI to produce all such communications. ECI, being a constitutional authority, was also accused of violating the All India Service (Conduct) Rules, 1968, which insist on written instructions.
Some of these messages included directions to BLAs from not remaining present to assist voters during hearings contrary to the court’s orders, to mark electors as “uncollectable” after just three visits, no receipts for documents submitted by electors, among others.
The plea also raised questions on the ECI’s arbitrary rejection of “valid and permissible” documents submitted by eligible electors such as Permanent Residence Certificates, Family registers and residence certificates by Gram Panchayat. “Unlike Bihar where hearings were taking place at village level, the ECI has mandated that hearings in West Bengal be carried out at district/sub-division/block/municipality level,” the petition said, making it a cumbersome process for electors who have to travel long distances.
The ECI’s insistence on physical presence of migrant electors during the hearing process was another stark distinction the applications cited as in Bihar, no hearings were conducted for migrant labourers as the requisite documents were submitted by their relatives.
On January 3, these issues were highlighted by chief minister Mamata Banerjee in her letter addressed to the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) who has not responded to these concerns, which forced the TMC leaders to bring the matter to the court. The final electoral roll will be published in West Bengal on February 14.
