Supreme Court Showdown: Final Hearing on 27 Lakh Deleted Voters Today

NEW DELHI: A Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant is scheduled to deliver a landmark ruling today that will determine whether 27 lakh deleted voters in West Bengal can cast their ballots in the 2026 Assembly elections. The case stems from the “Special Intensive Revision” (SIR) exercise, which saw a massive purge of the electoral roll under judicial supervision.

The core of the dispute lies in the “freeze” of the voter list. While the Election Commission has set up tribunals to hear appeals against the deletions, it has also ruled that those cleared by the tribunals cannot be added to the rolls for the immediate Phase 1 and Phase 2 elections. The petitioners, representing the state government and civil society groups, argue that this effectively denies millions of people their fundamental right to vote, even if they prove their citizenship.

The ruling today is expected to address two critical questions: first, the legality of the SIR process in its current form, and second, whether the Election Commission can be mandated to issue “supplementary rolls” even after the official freeze date. Given that the first phase of polling is less than two weeks away, the court’s decision will have an immediate and potentially transformative impact on the election’s outcome, particularly in the border districts where the highest number of deletions occurred.