Hearing of cases affected as judicial officers busy with SIR in West Bengal

Judicial work across West Bengal’s district and metropolitan courts has been severely affected after hundreds of judicial officers were deployed to process nearly 50 lakh claims and objections under the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls ahead of the February 28 deadline.

Except for urgent matters and bail hearings, trials and regular proceedings — including in special courts such as those dealing with Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) cases — have also been affected as judges undertake SIR-related verification work.

Urgent matters only

Committees have been formed at the Calcutta High Court and district levels to reassign urgent cases to alternative courts, but litigants and judicial officers remain uncertain about when normal functioning will resume. Now that it has fallen to the judiciary to examine claims and objections, judicial officers have reached out to administrative complexes for the verification work.

These judicial officers are provided log-in credentials to study the claims and objects.

A District Judge asked how judges could participate in SIR work unless they are made electoral returning officers. The judge said that even trials for cases under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act have been kept in abeyance due to SIR work.

Several important cases where the trial process has been or likely to be affected include the South Calcutta Law College case (June 2025), the sexual assault of a medical student at Durgapur Medical College (October 2025) and the sexual assault and murder of a 13-year-old at Rampurhat at Birbhum (September 2025).

Retired IAS officer and former Rajya Sabha MP Jawhar Sircar said that involving judicial officers in the SIR was not a “well thought-out process”. “It is a knee-jerk reaction though there is nothing mala fide about the order,” Mr. Sircar said.

The former bureaucrat who has served as the Chief Electoral Officer, West Bengal said that under the Representation of the People Act, 1950, the District Magistrates or the District Electoral Officer are the ones with whom real authority lies as far as election processes were concerned.

When administrative jobs are thrust upon judicial officers they “may be out of depth” because judges are used to function in a particular format, and issue judicial and quasi judicial orders over pending disputes, he said.

Mr. Sircar argued that had the judicial officers been engaged in the process about a month ago the solution may have worked, but now only two or three days were left to meet the February 28 deadline.

Supplementary lists

West Bengal is witnessing an unprecedented situation where the final electoral roll may be released in phases. The Supreme Court has directed the EC to publish the final voter rolls in West Bengal on February 28. However, the supplementary lists would be published on a continuous basis till the date of nomination of candidates for the upcoming Assembly polls, the Supreme Court said.

On February 24, the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court told the Supreme Court that 294 judicial officers of the ranks of District Judges and Additional District Judges had been deployed but such deployment was not enough. He stated that even if one judge dealt with 250 cases a day, the verification process of about 50 lakh applications could drag on for 80 days.

The Supreme Court said that the High Court was entitled to additionally deploy civil judges, both senior and junior divisions, with experience of not less than three years. Accordingly, the leave of all civil judges was cancelled as per a notification of the High Court. The Supreme Court had also suggested that the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court could request his counterparts in Odisha and Jharkhand to provide serving or retired judicial officers for the verification work.

The Supreme Court had on February 20 highlighted a trust deficit between the West Bengal government and the Election Commission of India and directed that judicial officials of the State would look into claims and objections as part of the SIR.