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‘Blinded due to impending elections’: Supreme Court flags ‘logical discrepancy’ in Bengal voter roll revision
The SC questioned the Election Commission's "logical discrepancy" category for doubtful voters in West Bengal, stressing the need for a robust appeal process.
The Supreme Court on Monday questioned the Election Commission of India (ECI) over introducing a “logical discrepancy” category to identify doubtful voters only in West Bengal’s special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, while emphasising the need for a “robust appellate mechanism” to address grievances of those excluded from voter lists.
A total of six million voters were placed under the category after the draft roll was published; of this, 2.71 million voters were removed after failing to address the discrepancies.
Underscoring the significance of franchise, a bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi observed that the right to vote is not merely constitutional but one of the strongest expressions of democratic participation and nationalism, cautioning that exclusions from electoral rolls cannot be treated lightly.
“We need to have a robust appellate tribunal…Somewhere we are getting blinded due to the impending elections. But right to vote in a country where you are born is not a constitutional right alone but a sentimental one. This is one of the biggest expressions of nationalism that you are in a participative democracy…this is something we need to see,” the bench told senior counsel DS Naidu, representing ECI.
The appellate process, put in place following the court’s earlier directions, provides that persons excluded during the SIR can challenge their deletion first before the judicial officers and then before dedicated appellate tribunals comprising former chief justices and senior judges of high courts.
The court was hearing a case related to the functioning of appellate tribunals in West Bengal when it questioned the basis for creating a “logical discrepancy” category during the SIR in West Bengal, noting that no such classification existed during the Bihar exercise. The court pointedly highlighted what it saw as a departure from ECI’s own earlier position, particularly regarding voters linked to the 2002 electoral roll.
Under the SIR exercise, “logical discrepancies” are categorised into seven types, including cases of voters mapped to more than six progenies; age gaps under 15 years with parents; individuals aged over 45 missing from the 2002 rolls; mismatches in fathers’ names between the 2002 and 2005 lists; age gaps under 40 years with grandparents; age gaps over 50 years with parents; and gender mismatches with the 2002 list.
“Your original notification did not touch the 2002 list…yet your rejection reasons now hinge on it,” said the bench, recalling that in the Bihar SIR, ECI had categorically maintained that those already on the 2002 roll need not furnish fresh documents.
When ECI attempted to clarify that such voters only needed to establish identity with the earlier entries, the bench was unsparing: “Now you are improvising the submissions which you made earlier.”
The bench rejected any suggestion that the scale of the exercise could justify questionable methods. “It’s not end justifying means but means justifying the end. This is not a fight between State and Election Commission. This is not a blame game. It is about voter being sandwiched between two constitutional authorities…Court should not determine who is right or wrong,” it observed.
ECI had on April 10 announced that around nine million names were deleted from West Bengal’s electoral rolls during the SIR. Of these, 2.71 million voters were removed after failing adjudication under the controversial “logical discrepancy” category. SIR, which began in November 2025, saw 5.8 million names dropped in the draft roll published December 16. Voters in the 152 first-phase constituencies (April 23) who failed adjudication cannot vote, as rolls froze on April 6. And voter list for the second phase froze on April 9. Bengal’s 11.6% deletion rate ranks third highest among nine states, behind only Gujarat and Chhattisgarh.
A significant part of the court’s concern on Monday stemmed from the sheer scale and speed of the SIR process, with judicial officers reportedly adjudicating thousands of cases under tight timelines. “Each tribunal now has over a lakh appeals to hear. Our judicial officers had to go through thousands of documents. If they achieved an accuracy rate of even 70%, I would rate it as excellent. This is the kind of pressure at which our judicial officers have worked, margin of error will be there. We need to have a robust appellate tribunal,” it added.
The bench further stressed that appellate tribunals must function not as mechanical reviewers but as institutions guided by the “principles of inclusion”, ensuring that legitimate voters are not excluded due to procedural lapses or administrative pressure.
Even as it raised serious concerns, the court maintained that interference in electoral outcomes would remain limited and contingent on demonstrable impact. It indicated that if exclusions are substantial enough to potentially affect election results, particularly where the margin of victory is narrow, courts may be compelled to step in. At the same time, it clarified that such thresholds would be applied cautiously, reinforcing the principle of minimal judicial intervention in electoral processes.
The bench was dealing with pleas by individuals whose appeals against deletion from voter rolls are pending before appellate tribunals. They sought an extension of the electoral roll freeze date so they could vote if their appeals were allowed. Declining to entertain the request, the court directed petitioners to pursue their remedies before the designated tribunals. The court, however, left the door open for relief, clarifying that if appeals succeed, “necessary consequences shall follow.”
