Bengal SIR tribunal loses judge Biswajit Basu as 35 lakh still wait

Representative image. Biswarup Ganguly, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

Why it matters

These tribunals are the last step for a voter in West Bengal who wants a deleted name back on the roll. Justice Basu's exit comes while lakhs of appeals wait, and the reports do not yet say who will hear the cases that were before his bench.

Retired Calcutta High Court judge Justice Biswajit Basu resigned from the Bengal SIR tribunal on Saturday, 7 November 2026, citing personal reasons. He sent his resignation to Calcutta High Court Chief Justice Ravindra Vithalrao Ghuge, The Indian Express reported, and the news agencies IANS and UNI (United News of India) carried the same news. He headed one of the tribunals that hear appeals from voters cut from West Bengal’s electoral roll, and he leaves at a time when lakhs of appeals are still waiting to be heard.

The tribunals hear SIR appeals from people whose names were removed from the West Bengal voter list in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), the recheck of the voter list that began in the state on 4 November 2025. A year later, The Indian Express reported, the fate of more than 35 lakh voters is still pending before them.

Why Justice Biswajit Basu left the Bengal SIR tribunal

In his letter, Justice Basu gave personal reasons, according to all three reports. The Indian Express, quoting sources close to him, reported that he was unhappy with the infrastructure given to the tribunal and with its login rules, and that a new requirement to log in to the Election Commission of India (ECI) portal using Aadhaar was the last straw. He is also the chairperson of the Commission on Institutional Corruption, a post he was given in May 2026, the paper said.

The reports read did not say who will take over the appeals that were before Justice Basu’s bench, or which districts it covered.

How many Bengal SIR tribunal judges have left so far

The reports count the exits differently. IANS said Justice Basu is the fourth member to step down and that 15 of the 19 remain. Its list: former Calcutta High Court Chief Justice T S Sivagnanam, who cited family issues; former Justice Ranjit Kumar Bagh, who gave personal reasons; former Justice Indrajit Chatterjee; and now Justice Basu.

The Indian Express described Justice Basu as the third retired judge to resign, after Justice Sivagnanam and Justice Chatterjee, but added that Justice Chatterjee later agreed to stay on after the ECI promised to fix his complaints. His complaints, as reported, were a long daily commute from Salt Lake to the tribunal’s office at Joka on the outskirts of Kolkata, and the portal’s Aadhaar-linked login. So the difference between the two counts is mainly whether Justice Chatterjee is still at work.

Who has left, and when

• 4 November 2025: SIR begins in West Bengal.
• March 2026: the Supreme Court orders retired judges to hear SIR appeals; the ECI notifies 19 of them as appellate tribunals, Bar and Bench and LiveLaw reported.
• April 2026: the tribunals start work, LiveLaw reported, in the month of the Assembly election.
• 7 May 2026: Justice T S Sivagnanam’s resignation is reported by LiveLaw.
• Date not given: Justice Ranjit Kumar Bagh steps down, according to IANS.
• 1 October 2026: LiveLaw reports that Justice Indrajit Chatterjee, who hears Murshidabad’s appeals, has offered to resign from 2 November. He later agrees to stay, The Indian Express reported.
• 7 November 2026: Justice Biswajit Basu resigns.

What the SIR tribunals do and who sits on them

The Bengal SIR tribunal system was built in two layers on the Supreme Court’s orders, Bar and Bench reported. First, judicial officers decided the claims of people whose names the ECI had removed. Anyone unhappy with that decision could then appeal to a tribunal headed by a retired judge. IANS described the panel as 19 retired judges and magistrates. The Indian Express noted that this tribunal system is unique to Bengal’s SIR.

The scale is large. West Bengal had 7,66,37,529 registered voters before the SIR was notified, IANS reported. The final roll published on 28 February 2026 recorded 63,66,952 deletions. According to The Indian Express, the ECI’s software flagged 60.06 lakh entries for “logical discrepancies”, and 27.18 lakh voters were struck off just before the April polls.

SIR appeals in West Bengal: the numbers so far

The latest official figures on SIR appeals in the reports are from September. On 18 September the ECI told the Supreme Court that 38.31 lakh appeals had been filed with the tribunals, The Indian Express reported.

Appeals	Number
Filed by voters who were deleted	22.21 lakh
Filed against names being included	16.10 lakh
Total filed	38.31 lakh
Decided by 10 September	1.26 lakh

By NewsPlainly’s calculation, 1.26 lakh decided out of 38.31 lakh filed is about 3.3% of the appeals, as of 10 September. The figures do not show how many cases were decided after that date.

Work slowed further in the autumn. The ECI added an Aadhaar check to the tribunals’ portal login in September, and the judges wrote to West Bengal’s Additional Chief Electoral Officer on 24 September asking for it to be withdrawn, The Indian Express reported. The paper said work had come to a near halt after the tribunal chiefs refused to use Aadhaar over privacy concerns. On 28 October, the state’s Chief Electoral Officer replied that the judges could instead use digital signature certificates set up with a PAN card and a government ID card.

What it means for voters with pending appeals

A committee representing the 19 tribunal chiefs asked the ECI to drop the Aadhaar condition for uploading orders, to let the portal generate hearing notices, and to move the tribunals from Joka to a central location in Kolkata. The ECI agreed to all of these, according to The Indian Express, but the changes had not yet been made on the ground. A source told the paper that the new guidelines would also let voters download the orders in their cases once a tribunal uploads them.

Until then, the tribunals are still checking applications and keeping paper notes of their work, to be uploaded once the new logins are allowed, the paper reported. For a voter whose appeal is pending, that means a decision may be recorded but not yet visible online.

When an appeal succeeds, the name comes back through a supplementary list. The ECI had said such lists would be published as the adjudication went on, IANS reported. The reports read did not give a date for the next list or a deadline for the tribunals to finish. More West Bengal news is on our West Bengal page.

Frequently asked questions

What is the SIR tribunal in West Bengal?

It is a set of 19 appeal benches headed by retired judges, set up on the Supreme Court's orders in March 2026. Voters can appeal there after a judicial officer rules on their deleted name.

Why did Justice Biswajit Basu resign?

His letter gave personal reasons. Sources told The Indian Express he was unhappy with the tribunal's infrastructure and the Aadhaar-based login to the ECI portal.

How many judges have left the SIR tribunal?

IANS says four of 19 have left. The Indian Express says Justice Indrajit Chatterjee, one of the four in the IANS count, agreed to stay on, which would make it three.

What happens to my pending SIR appeal?

It stays with the tribunals. The reports did not say who will hear the cases before Justice Basu's bench. Names restored on appeal are added through supplementary lists.