West Bengal SIR: Over 37 lakh appeals stuck in Tribunals as Municipal polls draw near

Subscribed with another email? Logout and Login with that one. Account subscription benefits alongside Premium Stories, Editorials, Opinions and more. Unlock these with Subscription Published - September 18, 2026 12:40 pm IST - NEW DELHI Voters check their names in the list after the Election Commission published West Bengal's post-SIR electoral rolls, in Kolkata. File. | Photo Credit: PTI The Election Commission of India (EC) has informed the Supreme Court that over 37 lakh of a total 38 lakh appeals arising out of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in West Bengal are still pending in 19 Tribunals. Over six months have passed since the Supreme Court constituted the Appellate Tribunals. The statistics have come out following a Supreme Court order after petitioners had complained that the details of the tribunals’ pendency and disposal rates continue to be a closely guarded secret instead of being out there in the public domain. On August 28, senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan and advocate Neha Rathi, appearing for petitioner Prasenjit Bose, chairperson of the SIR Committee, West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee, had banked on a Right to Information (RTI) response they got from the election authorities to flag the issue of pendency of the 38-odd lakh appeals. Editorial | Lists of folly: On the Supreme Court, the SIR and benefits Again, merely 1,514 appeals were disposed of from among the 5,31,345 appeals filed from Malda district. On August 28, the Supreme Court had questioned the EC keeping a lid on publicly releasing data on the pendency and disposal of appeals regarding both exclusions and inclusions arising from the SIR.