Kolkata: At least 294 serving and retired district judicial officers are likely to be deployed in West Bengal to dispose of around 4.5 million pending disputed voter claims during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in the poll-bound state.
Chief justice of the Calcutta High Court Sujoy Paul held a meeting in this regard with senior officials of the state government and the Election Commission on Saturday.
“There are around 4.5 million pending cases, which need to be adjudicated by serving and retired district judges and additional district judges. We have proposed that at least 294 such judicial officers could be appointed, one for each of the 294 assembly constituencies, to dispose of the cases at the earliest,” said a senior official of the poll panel.
This comes a day after the Supreme Court of India requested the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court to spare serving as well as retired judicial officers in the rank of additional district judge and district judge to revisit and dispose of claims falling under the “logical discrepancy” category.
The SIR was rolled out in West Bengal on November 4, 2025. While the draft electoral roll was published on December 16, 2025, with around 5.8 million voters’ names struck off, another 15.2 million voters were called for hearings. These voters either could not be mapped with the 2002 electoral roll or had logical discrepancies in their enumeration forms. The hearings concluded on February 14. The scrutiny and disposal of the cases continued till midnight of February 21.
The final voter roll for the politically crucial eastern state is slated to be published on February 28. High-stakes assembly elections are set to follow weeks later.
“Once the pending claims are disposed of by the serving and retired district judges and additional judges, the eligible voters would be enrolled in the electoral roll. If the final roll is published by then, we would publish supplementary rolls to include the genuine voters. Supplementary rolls may be published even after the poll dates are announced, till the date of nomination,” said an EC official.
Meanwhile, the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court on Saturday ordered cancellation of leave for all judicial officers posted in different courts of West Bengal till March 9 to ensure compliance with directions passed by the Supreme Court for completion of the SIR.
