More than 37 lakh appeals challenging changes to electoral rolls in West Bengal under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise are pending before appellate tribunals, the Election Commission has told the Supreme Court.
According to an affidavit filed by the poll panel, 38,20,683 appeals have been filed against orders relating to the SIR exercise, of which 1,02,231 have been disposed of. This leaves 37,18,452 appeals pending.
The affidavit, however, does not provide a break-up of appeals filed by electors whose names were deleted and those challenging the inclusion of names in the rolls.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant and comprising Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana had sought the EC's response on a plea filed by Prasenjit Bose, chairperson of the SIR committee of the West Bengal Congress.
The plea sought Assembly constituency-wise data on claims and objections filed by voters whose names were deleted during the SIR exercise.
The EC data submitted to the court also showed that 34.13 lakh Form 6 applications were filed between December 17, 2025, when the draft electoral roll was published, and August 7, 2026. Form 6 is used to seek inclusion of a name in the electoral roll.
The figure includes applications from people seeking registration for the first time as well as those whose names were deleted during the draft-stage revision.
Bose had claimed in his petition that more than 58 lakh electors were excluded during the enumeration phase of the SIR exercise. He had also said that 9.64 lakh applications for inclusion through Forms 6 and 6A and more than 99,000 applications for deletion through Form 7 were received during the claims and objections phase.
Only around 1.82 lakh additions, however, were reflected in the final electoral roll published on February 28, according to the petition.
On August 25, the Supreme Court directed the EC to furnish data on the pendency and disposal of appeals before tribunals challenging exclusion or inclusion in the electoral rolls.
The court had said the appeals needed to be adjudicated in a time-bound manner and asked the poll panel to explain the steps being taken to streamline their disposal and the number of additional tribunals required.
Earlier, on April 24, the apex court directed appellate tribunals to give out-of-turn hearings to electors seeking urgent relief against deletion of their names from the rolls following the SIR exercise.
Around 700 judicial officers from West Bengal, Odisha and Jharkhand were deployed to deal with nearly 60 lakh claims and objections.
Subsequently, on the Supreme Court's direction, the chief justice of the Calcutta High Court constituted 19 tribunals headed by former high court chief justices and judges to adjudicate the appeals.
(With inputs from PTI)