‘Engage civil judges in SIR work and if needed…’, SC order on Bengal SIR

The Supreme Court on Tuesday (February 24, 2026) has directed to appoint civil judges in Bengal SIR and said that if there is still a shortage of judicial officers, then a request should be made to provide them to the neighboring states. The Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court has informed the Supreme Court that there are not enough judicial officers available in view of the outstanding work of the SIR and the short time left for it.

In the last hearing, in view of the differences between the Bengal government and the Election Commission regarding the appointment of officers for the SIR, the Supreme Court had directed the Calcutta High Court to appoint judicial officers. Regarding this, Calcutta High Court said on Monday that there are not enough officers available as per the time limit of SIR.

The final list of the Special Intensive Inspection (SIR) of the voter list going on in Bengal is to be released on February 28. The state government was asked to provide Class 2 officers to the Election Commission to investigate the objections and claims of the voters in the voter list, on which differences were seen between the two sides and the court asked the judicial officers to get this work done.

The bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul M Panchaul said that 50 lakh claims have to be investigated. Even if 250 District Judges and Additional District Judges are appointed for this and each officer disposes of 250 cases in a day, it will still take 80 days to complete the work. CJI Surya Kant said that in view of the situation, we are also adding this instruction in the previous order-

• The Chief Justice of the High Court should also use civil judges with more than three years of experience.
• If he feels that there is still a shortage of judicial officers, then he should also request the Chief Justice of the neighboring states of Jharkhand and Odisha to provide judicial officers.
• The Election Commission will bear the expenses of travel and stay of these officials.
• The date of publication of the final list is 28th February. The Election Commission may release a supplementary list even after that.
• People who find place in the supplementary list will also be considered included in the final list.

The Supreme Court is hearing petitions in which questions have been raised regarding the validity of the SIR process. The Bengal government had opposed the appointment of micro observers from other states. At the same time, the Election Commission claimed that the state government did not provide officers, due to which officers were called from other states.

In the hearing on February 9, the court had directed the Bengal government to provide Class 2 officers, but on February 20, the Election Commission said that till now they have not been provided officers. At the same time, the Bengal government says that the Election Commission has now appointed another new type of officers. They are being called Special Role Officers, this special officer is even higher than the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO). In view of this dispute between the two parties, the Supreme Court SIR Instructions were given to get the work done by judicial officers.

(With inputs from Nipun Sehgal)