The Supreme Court issued notice on Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury’s plea for faster disposal of West Bengal SIR appeals and asked the ECI to place on record how many appeals the tribunals have decided.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notice on a plea by Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury seeking the faster disposal of appeals arising from the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal, and asked the Election Commission of India (ECI) to place on record how many such appeals the Appellate Tribunals had disposed of so far [Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury v. Election Commission of India and Others].
A Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana heard the matter. The plea seeks the constitution of additional Appellate Tribunals in districts including Murshidabad and Malda to cope with the caseload, and the expeditious hearing of the appeals already pending.
‘We need to know what is actually happening to those appeals’
The Bench made clear at the outset that the mere existence of the appellate mechanism was not the measure of its effectiveness — what mattered was the rate at which appeals were actually being decided. Justice Bagchi observed:
“Merely filing an appeal is not sufficient. The Court also needs to know what is actually happening to those appeals and how many have been disposed of so far.”
Directing the poll body to furnish the numbers, he added:
“Give us the figures on disposals so far. Filing an appeal alone is not enough; we also need to see what happens to it afterwards.“
The Bench indicated that the design of the tribunal system might itself require a fresh look if the throughput was inadequate, observing:
“The entire structure of the appellate tribunal system may need to be reconsidered. Options such as online access to judges and other modern mechanisms can be explored. But for now, the Court is concerned with one issue — how many appeals are actually being disposed of. We are not examining deletion or non-deletion here.”
The PDS grievance carved out
Appearing for Chowdhury, counsel sought to link two problems — that SIR-related deletions were being relied upon to deny beneficiaries their entitlements under the Public Distribution System (PDS), while the tribunals were not clearing appeals quickly enough. Counsel submitted:
“The problem is that SIR deletions are being relied upon to deny PDS benefits. At the same time, the Appellate Tribunals are not deciding appeals quickly enough.”
The Bench declined to fold that grievance into the present proceedings, holding that it raised a distinct cause of action to be pursued elsewhere. Addressing the petitioner directly, Justice Bagchi said:
“If you expand this case to include denial of PDS benefits, the Supreme Court will not entertain that issue. That grievance has to be taken before the Calcutta High Court. However, if the petition is confined to monitoring how the Appellate Tribunals are functioning and disposing of appeals, the Court can examine it.”
He added that any use of SIR-related deletions by the West Bengal government to deny PDS benefits would constitute a separate cause of action, to be agitated before the High Court rather than the Supreme Court.
The direction and next date
Recording the operative direction, the Chief Justice said:
“The Election Commission of India should place on record the number of appeals disposed of by the Appellate Tribunals.”
When Senior Advocate Dama Seshadri Naidu suggested that the matter be taken up alongside the connected cases, the Chief Justice directed that it be listed on August 25 and tagged with the pending SIR matters.
Live Hearing Thread:-
Background: the SIR and the tribunal mechanism
The plea is the latest strand of a litigation that has run through the Supreme Court for much of the past year and reshaped how West Bengal’s electoral rolls were revised ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections.
The controversy arose from the ECI’s Special Intensive Revision of the state’s electoral rolls, which threw up a very large number of names flagged under categories such as “logical discrepancies.” In January 2026, the Court directed the ECI to publicly display the names of voters placed on the logical-discrepancies list — which then ran to over a crore — and to give affected voters an opportunity to submit documents and be heard. As allegations and counter-allegations mounted over the conduct of the exercise, the Court, invoking its powers under Article 142, shifted the adjudication of claims and objections into a quasi-judicial framework, directing that serving and former district judges of West Bengal be deputed to decide them.
To provide a final tier of recourse, the Court directed the creation of an appellate mechanism. Acting on that direction and on the recommendation of the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court, the ECI in March 2026 constituted 19 Appellate Tribunals, headed by former High Court judges, to hear appeals against the orders of the designated judicial officers across the state’s districts. As the Assembly elections approached, the Court further directed, again under Article 142, that appellate orders passed within specified cut-off dates be given effect to through supplementary revised electoral rolls, so that successful appellants could vote.
Throughout, the Court has drawn a consistent line between the questions it will entertain and those it has directed litigants — including, on earlier occasions, the state government itself — to take to the Calcutta High Court, treating administrative and benefit-related grievances as matters for the High Court while retaining oversight of the integrity and pace of the revision process. Tuesday’s order, confining the plea to the monitoring of appeal disposals and routing the PDS grievance to the High Court, follows that same division of labour.
For the Petitioner: (through counsel)
Also appearing: Dama Seshadri Naidu, Sr. Adv.
Case : ADHIR RANJAN CHOWDHURY Vs ELECTION COMMISSION OF INDIA| D No. 38345/2026
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