In view of the lack of trust between the West Bengal government and the Election Commission, the Supreme Court has directed to appoint a judicial officer for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process. The court asked the Calcutta High Court to appoint judicial officers to decide on the claims and objections in the SIR. The court has said that these officers should be spotless and should be of the rank of District Judge and Additional District Judge.
On Friday (February 20, 2026), the Bengal government and the Election Commission were seen accusing each other in front of the bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi. Bengal government’s lawyer Shyam Diwan said 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).
On this argument of Shyam Diwan, CJI Surya Kant said, ‘It seems that we will have to appoint judicial officers or IAS from other cadre. The Chief Justice of the High Court will have to be asked to appoint judicial officers with good records.
Senior advocate DM Naidu, appearing for the Election Commission, told the court that West Bengal has not provided qualified officers to the Commission. On this the CJI expressed disappointment and said that we were expecting a cooperative attitude from the state government. In the hearing on February 9, the court had directed the Bengal government to provide Class 2 officers. Even then the court had reprimanded the state government as to why officers were not made available despite giving orders in the last hearing.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal said during this time that the court had ordered that the date of scrutiny of documents is being extended from February 14 to February 21, but the Election Commission has stopped uploading the documents from February 15. The CJI told him that he would seek information from the Election Commission on his order of that day and its implementation. The court asked the status of the SIR, on which Kapil Sibal said that there are still 48 hours in it and he is raising some issues.
(With inputs from Nipun Sehgal)
