On February 21, 2026, the Supreme Court of India took what it itself described as an “extraordinary” decision — deploying serving and retired judicial officers of West Bengal to oversee the quasi-judicial aspects of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the State. A three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant made this unprecedented move after finding that a persistent “trust deficit” between the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government and the Election Commission of India (ECI) had created a dangerous stalemate, with the February 28 deadline for the claims and objections phase rapidly approaching. This intervention is remarkable not merely for its procedural novelty but for what it reveals about the fragility of institutional relationships in Indian democracy, the constitutional boundaries of the Election Commission’s authority, the limits of State government cooperation, and the judiciary’s evolving role as an arbiter of electoral integrity. For UPSC aspirants, this episode touches simultaneously on constitutional law, federalism, electoral governance, and the separation of powers between constitutional bodies.
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Five Important Key Points
- The Supreme Court directed the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court to deploy serving and retired District and Additional District Judges to take over the quasi-judicial functions of Electoral Registration Officers during the SIR process in West Bengal.
- The stalemate arose from a dispute between the West Bengal government and the Election Commission over the quality, rank, and number of personnel the State had deputed to assist the ECI for the SIR exercise.
- The Election Commission is constitutionally mandated under Article 324 to superintend, direct, and control elections, but it depends on State governments for administrative machinery under Article 328 and the Representation of the People Act, 1950.
- Lakhs of voters had received hearing notices after being found “unmapped” or showing “logical discrepancies” in their details, and their democratic right to be included in electoral rolls was at risk due to the institutional deadlock.
- The Centre simultaneously notified a new empowered committee under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) to fast-track citizenship applications in West Bengal, adding another layer of political and constitutional complexity to the exercise.
Background: What Is the Special Intensive Revision?
The Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls is a process initiated by the Election Commission of India to comprehensively verify and update voter lists. Unlike the routine summary revision conducted annually, a SIR involves door-to-door enumeration, verification of individual voter details, and a structured claims and objections process during which voters who have been excluded from the draft roll can seek inclusion. The ECI launched the SIR in West Bengal in the context of upcoming Assembly elections, and the exercise took on heightened political significance because it involved the scrutiny of a very large number of voters — particularly in border districts — whose details were found to be “unmapped” or internally inconsistent.
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The process is not merely administrative. Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) and Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs) perform quasi-judicial functions when they adjudicate on whether a voter should be included in or excluded from the electoral roll. These decisions affect the fundamental right to vote, which while not explicitly enumerated in Part III of the Constitution, has been consistently held by the Supreme Court to be a constitutional right implicit in the democratic framework established by Articles 325, 326, and 329. Any procedural failure in this process directly impacts the exercise of universal adult franchise, the bedrock of Indian democracy.
The Constitutional Framework: Election Commission and State Government
Article 324 of the Constitution vests in the Election Commission the superintendence, direction, and control of the preparation of electoral rolls and the conduct of all elections to Parliament and State Legislatures. This is a plenary power, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly held in cases like Mohinder Singh Gill v. Chief Election Commissioner (1978) that Article 324 is an exhaustive code that grants the ECI residual powers to act in situations not covered by specific legislation.
However, the ECI is not a self-sufficient administrative unit. Section 13AA of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 designates District Collectors or other officers appointed by State governments as Electoral Registration Officers. The ECI thus depends substantially on the State’s administrative machinery — its officers, police personnel, logistics, and infrastructure — to conduct electoral exercises. This structural dependency creates a constitutional tension when the State government and the Election Commission are at odds politically or administratively.
In West Bengal’s case, the Trinamool Congress government’s alleged reluctance to depute adequate and appropriately ranked officials to assist the ECI is not merely bureaucratic obstinacy; it reflects a deep political suspicion that the SIR exercise — particularly in border districts involving the scrutiny of voters linked to the Matua community and CAA applications — is being used as an instrument to disenfranchise legitimate voters ahead of State elections.
The CAA Dimension: A Parallel Process
The concurrent notification by the Ministry of Home Affairs of a new empowered committee to fast-track CAA applications in West Bengal adds significant constitutional and political weight to this already charged exercise. The CAA, passed in December 2019 and operationalised through rules in March 2024, provides an expedited citizenship pathway for Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian refugees from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh who entered India before December 31, 2014.
Many members of the Matua community — Hindu Namasudras with roots in Bangladesh — had applied for CAA citizenship precisely because their names were not in the 2002 electoral list, which serves as the baseline for the SIR exercise. The connection is direct: a person without Indian citizenship cannot be on the electoral roll, and the SIR’s scrutiny of “unmapped” voters creates urgency for those whose citizenship status depends on a pending CAA application.
The West Bengal government, which has opposed both the CAA and the SIR exercise, views this parallel process as a coordinated attempt to alter the demographic composition of the voter list before elections — an allegation that the Centre and ECI deny. The Supreme Court’s observation about a “trust deficit” is essentially a judicial acknowledgment that this political and institutional conflict has paralysed a constitutionally mandated process with real consequences for real voters.
The Judiciary Steps In: Precedent and Propriety
The Supreme Court’s decision to deploy judicial officers to perform ERO/AERO functions is, as the court itself acknowledged, extraordinary. Under normal circumstances, the principle of separation of powers would counsel against the judiciary performing executive or quasi-judicial administrative functions. Courts adjudicate; they do not administer elections. But the court found the situation sufficiently grave to justify this departure.
The legal basis for this intervention flows from the court’s plenary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution, which allows the Supreme Court to pass any order necessary to do “complete justice” in any matter pending before it. Article 142 has been used creatively in the past — to dissolve marriages on grounds of irretrievable breakdown, to order environmental remediation, to restructure failing companies — but its application to electoral administration is relatively novel and analytically significant.
The court’s direction that judicial officers’ instructions would be “deemed to be that of the Supreme Court” and that the State administration must comply “without demur” is a strong assertion of judicial authority over what is ordinarily an executive domain. It also signals the court’s institutional frustration with what it characterised as “recriminations” between two constitutional bodies — the elected State government and the constitutionally independent Election Commission.
Federalism Under Stress
This episode is also a significant case study in cooperative federalism’s limits. India’s constitutional design requires the Centre, State governments, and constitutional bodies like the ECI to function collaboratively, particularly in matters of elections. Article 243K and the broader electoral framework assume a degree of administrative good faith between the State and central election machinery. When that good faith breaks down, as it has in West Bengal, the entire electoral process is placed at risk.
The Trinamool Congress’s celebratory response to the court’s order — calling it a “historic demolition of the ECI’s bloated arrogance” — itself reveals how politicised the institutional conflict has become. Regardless of the merits of either side’s position, the spectacle of a State government publicly celebrating a Supreme Court order that limits the Election Commission’s operational authority is deeply concerning from a constitutional governance perspective. The ECI’s independence under Article 324 is not a discretionary preference; it is a structural necessity for free and fair elections.
Challenges and Way Forward
The fundamental challenge exposed by this episode is structural: the ECI’s dependence on State government machinery creates an inherent vulnerability when State governments are politically hostile to an electoral exercise. Several law commission reports and election law reform proposals have recommended creating a dedicated cadre of election officials insulated from State government control, similar to how the UPSC or SEBI have their own administrative structures. The Goswami Committee (1990) and the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (2002) had both flagged this issue.
The way forward must involve legislative reforms to the Representation of the People Act to give the ECI clearer authority over the deployment of State officials during electoral exercises, with enforceable timelines and penalties for non-cooperation. Parliament should also consider establishing a statutory framework for the SIR process that specifies the qualifications, timelines, and procedures for ERO adjudication, reducing the scope for political interference.
Relevance for UPSC and SSC Examinations
This topic is directly relevant to UPSC GS Paper II (Indian Polity and Governance) covering Article 324, the Election Commission’s powers, electoral roll preparation under the Representation of the People Act, 1950, and cooperative federalism. The CAA dimension connects to GS Paper II (Citizenship, minority rights) and GS Paper I (Society). The Supreme Court’s use of Article 142 is important for GS Paper II and the Law Optional. For SSC examinations, factual points — Article 324, ERO powers, the SIR process, the Calcutta High Court’s role, and the February 28 deadline — are directly examinable in current affairs sections. The broader theme of institutional conflict between elected governments and constitutional bodies is a recurring UPSC Mains essay and interview topic.