The Election Commission has placed the numbers before the Supreme Court. Of more than 38 lakh appeals filed against the revised West Bengal electoral rolls, fewer than 3% have been decided. Over 37 lakh remain pending before the Appellate Tribunals. The Commission has not, so far, given the Court the break-up it had asked for between appeals against exclusions and appeals against inclusions.
New Delhi: In the West Bengal Special Intensive Revision (SIR) matter, the Election Commission of India has filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court stating that over 97% of the appeals filed before the Appellate Tribunals against the revised electoral rolls remain pending [Mostari Banu v. Election Commission of India and Others].
According to the affidavit, filed on September 16, a total of 38,20,683 appeals were filed before the Appellate Tribunals. Of these, 1,02,231, roughly 2.68%, have been disposed of, while 37,18,452 remain to be decided.
The break-up the Court sought
As recorded in the affidavit, the Commission has not furnished bifurcated data on the number of appeals filed against exclusions from the rolls as against the number filed against inclusions. On the previous hearing date, the petitioners, relying on information obtained under the Right to Information Act, had told the Court that more than 80% of the appeals were filed by third parties challenging the inclusion of names in the voters’ list, and that appeals filed by excluded voters formed only about 20%.
That distinction was one the Court had specifically asked the Commission to address. In the main SIR matter, the Court had directed the ECI to file an affidavit giving the number of appeals pending in the Tribunals, a break-up of appeals filed by excluded persons as against appeals against inclusions, the number disposed of and the nature of relief sought, and the number allowed together with the consequential steps taken to update the rolls.
How the matter reached this stage
A Bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana is hearing the West Bengal SIR matter. On August 11, the Court had directed the Commission to furnish details on the quantum of appeals disposed of by the Appellate Tribunals, in a petition filed by Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Choudhary seeking directions to streamline and expedite those disposals. At that time, the Court orally observed that it could not fix timelines for decisions by the Tribunals, but agreed to monitor their functioning.
During the hearing, Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan suggested that appeals pending in Kolkata and Howrah be prioritised, as municipal elections in those districts are due in December, and that appeals filed by persons excluded from the rolls be taken up first, contending, on the basis of an RTI reply, that nearly 80% of the appeals in West Bengal concerned inclusion in the rolls.
The Commission’s affidavit indicates that 2,29,060 appeals are pending in the districts of Kolkata (North and South) and Howrah. As the report notes, since the Tribunals have so far disposed of 5,485 appeals since their constitution, prioritising all appeals in these districts would require deciding 2,29,060 appeals in roughly 2.5 months.
The exclusion-versus-inclusion point
On the last date, the Court had indicated that directions could be passed for additional Tribunals if required. Sankaranarayanan submitted that additional Tribunals might not be necessary if appeals against exclusions were prioritised, while the Court called on the Commission to explain whether additional Tribunals were required and what steps had been taken to streamline disposals.
Justice Bagchi observed that, depending on the break-up between exclusions and inclusions, some directions could be issued to prioritise, since it was exclusion that caused an immediate violation of a person’s rights. The distinction matters because an appeal against an exclusion is brought by a person seeking to be restored to the rolls, whereas an appeal against an inclusion is one seeking another person’s removal from them.
Why it matters
The Appellate Tribunals are the forum where a voter or an objector can challenge what the revised rolls show, and their pace therefore determines whether errors in the rolls are corrected before an election is held. On the figures the Commission has now placed on record, the bulk of that work remains undone: with over 37 lakh appeals pending and municipal polls due in some districts in December, the question of how quickly the Tribunals can decide, and which appeals they take up first, has a direct bearing on who appears on the rolls when voting takes place.
The exclusion-versus-inclusion break-up that the Court has sought, and that the affidavit does not supply, is central to the prioritisation debate. On the petitioners’ reading of the RTI data, most appeals seek the removal of names rather than the restoration of excluded voters; if that is so, prioritising exclusion appeals would, as argued, address the more immediate harm, a citizen kept off the rolls, without the same urgency attaching to the larger body of inclusion challenges. The Commission has not confirmed those proportions before the Court, and the accuracy of the break-up remains to be placed on record.
Nothing has been finally decided. The Court is monitoring the functioning of the Tribunals rather than fixing deadlines for them, has flagged the possibility of additional Tribunals, and has left the prioritisation question open pending the data it has asked for. What the affidavit establishes is the scale of the pendency; the directions that may follow will turn on the further details the Court has required the Commission to furnish.
Case Title: Mostari Banu v. Election Commission of India and Others [W.P.(C) No. 1089/2025 and connected cases]
Bench: Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana, Supreme Court of India
Affidavit filed: September 16, 2026
Status: ECI affidavit records 37,18,452 of 38,20,683 appeals pending before the Appellate Tribunals; exclusion-versus-inclusion break-up sought by the Court not yet furnished. Matter being monitored; prioritisation and additional-Tribunals questions open.