Supreme Court to Calcutta High Court in ‘extraordinary order’

The Supreme Court directed the State Election Commissioner, the chief secretary, the police chief, and other top officers to hold a meeting with the high court chief justice tomorrow, February 20.

judicial officers, West Bengal SIR, Supreme Court, Calcutta High Court, West Bengal, Election Commission, ECI, Chief Justice of India, CJI, Surya Kant — The SC said that it had to pass an extraordinary order due to extraordinary circumstances.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court, on Friday, 20 February 2026, told the Calcutta High Court to appoint judicial officers to help West Bengal in carrying out the special intensive revision (SIR) exercise. This happened after a blame game started between the state government and the Election Commission (ECI) over the voter roll clean-up drive.

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‘Unfortunate scenario of allegations and counter-allegations’

“There is an unfortunate scenario of allegations and counter-allegations, which shows a trust deficit between two constitutional functionaries. That is the state government and the Election Commission. Now, the process is stuck at the stage of claims and objections of the people who have been included in the discrepancy list,” Chief Justice of India Surya Kant said.

The SC said that it had to pass an extraordinary order due to extraordinary circumstances and told the Calcutta High Court to free up serving and even former judicial officers in the rank of district judge for SIR work.

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The Supreme Court directed the State Election Commissioner, the chief secretary, the police chief, and other top officers to hold a meeting with the high court chief justice tomorrow, February 20.

‘State obligated to provide Group A officers’

“The state is obligated to provide Group A officers to perform the duty of SDO and SDM. There is a dispute among the party about the rank of the officials provided by the state government to perform the functions of ERO and AERO. It is nearly impossible for this court to determine the status and rank of officials now deployed by the ECI given by the state,” the Supreme Court said.

“In order to ensure fairness in adjudication of genuineness of documents submitted and consequent inclusion or exclusion in voter list. We are left with hardly any other option but to request the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court to spare some serving judicial officers along with some former judicial officers in the rank of ADJ or district judges, who can then in each district help in disposing or revisiting the claims under the logical discrepancy list,” the Supreme Court said.