In Mamata Banerjee vs. Election Commission of India (2026), Supreme Court's 3-judge bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul M Pancholi heard the writ petition filed by Mamata Banerjee, the longest serving woman Chief Minister of Bengal challenging the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in the State. The Court directed the ECI to file its response by February 9, 2026. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, has questioned the legality, timing, and manner of implementation of the SIR.
Mamata Banerjee is one of the senior most chief Ministers of country who has been a senior union minister in the past.
Notably, SIR became controversial ahead of the assembly elections in Bihar. Although assembly election in Bihar were concluded in November 2025, the cases against SIR in Bihar filed in the Supreme Court has not been concluded as yet.
Significantly, ECI has claimed that no appeals were filed from Meghalaya, Nagaland, Madhya Pradesh, Chandigarh and Uttar Pradesh after the completion of the Special Summary Revision (SSR) exercise as of 6-10 January 2025.
Can SSR process be compared with SIR process?
The Constitutional and legal provisions regarding eligibility to be registered as a voter and disqualifications for registration in an electoral roll are laid down in Article 326 of the Constitution of India and Section 16 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 respectively. The preparation of electoral rolls and elections are conducted in accordance with the Representation of People Act 1950, 1951, Registration of Electors Rules 1960, Conduct of Election Rules, 1961.
In accordance with Section 23 of the Representation of People Act 1950, the eligibility conditions to enrol as an elector are verified by the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) to his/her satisfaction.
Ahead of the upcoming assembly elections in Bengal, Mamata Banerjee is seeking following reliefs from the Court:
A.Set aside ECI's SIR notification of June 24, 2025 and October 27, 2025.
B. Direct ECI to conduct the forthcoming 18th Legislative Assembly elections in the State of West Bengal in the year 2026, on the basis of the existing Electoral Rolls, 2025
C. Direct ECI to issue written instructions to all DEOs, EROs, AEROs and BLOs that cases involving name mismatches / spelling variations falling under the "Logical Discrepancy" category shall not be called for hearing, and that all such name corrections may be carried out suo motu on the basis of available records
D.Direct ECI to upload all names of 'unmapped' and Logical Discrepancy cases online on the CEO and DEO websites
E. Direct ECI to withdraw all hearing notices already issued in the past under the 'Logical Discrepancy category where the only issue is a name mismatch or spelling variation, and intimate the concerned electors accordingly.
F. Direct the ECI to ensure that no voter marked under the Logical Discrepancy' category is deleted, and that while any anomalies may be duly rectified, no legitimate voter who has been successfully mapped to the 2002 electoral rolls and has submitted all requisite documents is disenfranchised
G. Direct ECI to accept Aadhar Cards as proof of identity especially in cases of 'Logical Discrepancy' without insisting on any other documents
H. Direct ECI to publish online names of all voters in respect of whom Form-7 has been received and to not allow any further bulk submission of Form-7
I. Direct ECI to allow ERO/AERO to dispose of the cases locally where inter-state documents pending with DEO for verification beyond 5 [five] days
J. Direct ECI to withdraw all Micro-Observers from the State of West Bengal
K. In the alternative to prayer (j) above, direct ECI to ensure that Micro-Observers do not exercise any statutory power such as participation in hearings/verification of work done by ERO/AERO in any manner whatsoever with immediate effect
L. Direct ECI to accept all documents issued by competent authorities of the State during the verification process
M. Direct ECI to follow the procedure for disposal of cases by local inquiry/field inquiry in terms of point 5(a) and 5(b) of ECI's order dated 24.06.2025 and make necessary changes to the ERO/AERO portal/application to facilitate the same;
N.All complainants submitting Form-7 be directed to remain present at the time of hearing;
West Bengal Chief Minister has filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court against the Election Commission of India (ECI), challenging the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process ongoing in the State.
West Bengal Chief Minister informed the Court that "Only they have targeted Bengal on the eve of elections. Why, after 24 years, what was the hurry to do in two months what will take two years? When the festival season is there, when the harvest season is there, when people are in no mood to be in the city, they are troubling people issuing notices. More than 100 people have died. BLOs have died writing letters, because of the harassment of ECI. Many are hospitalised. Bengal is targeted. Sir, tell me,why not Assam? Why not North East?" She added:"58 lakh people are deleted. Living people are declared dead. They are targeting Bengal, only for Bengal they have appointed micro-observers. They want to bulldoze the people of Bengal".
She asserted:"The problem is, always our lawyers fight for the case and we are fighting from the beginning. But when everything is finished, when we are not getting justice, when justice is crying behind the door - then we thought, we are not getting justice anywhere. I have written letters to the Election Commission including all details, but no reply. I am a bonded labour. I am a very less important person, I am from a common family, I am not fighting for my party."
Her senior counsel submitted that only 11 days are left for the publication of the final list but over 1.36 crore persons included in the 'Logical Discrepancy(LD)' list are yet to be heard.
The petition was filed on January 28, 2026 stating that the ongoing process will result in "large-scale disenfranchisement" in Bengal in particular. Several other States from South India are also wary about the SIR.
Election Commission of India is yet to realize that sunlight of transparency is the best disinfectant.
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