On April 13, 2026, the Supreme Court of India took up a batch of petitions and Election Commission representations concerning the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal, a process launched ahead of the 2026 West Bengal Legislative Assembly elections. A bench headed by the Chief Justice of India heard submissions from the Election Commission of India (ECI), the State government and several political parties. The core dispute concerns the scope, timelines and documentation required under the SIR, which is a deeper cleaning exercise than the ordinary Summary Revision conducted every year. The ECI argued that an SIR is necessary to remove duplicate entries, deceased voters and ineligible entries, and to enroll eligible young voters and migrants who have shifted residence after the last intensive revision. Opposition parties and civil society petitioners raised concerns that the documentation burden on poor and migrant voters could become exclusionary, particularly for women without independent property records, tenants and daily-wage workers, and urged the Court to direct that no eligible voter is struck off without adequate notice and a hearing. The Court also examined the legal framework — Representation of the People Act 1950, Registration of Electors Rules 1960 and ECI guidelines — and the data protection concerns around door-to-door verification. The bench kept the appellate-tribunal framework as the operative grievance route and directed the ECI to publish supplementary revised rolls for voters whose appeals were allowed by April 21 for the first phase or April 27 for the second phase. The case is politically sensitive because West Bengal will go to polls in 2026 and clean, credible rolls are a foundational requirement for a free and fair election. The Supreme Court's eventual orders will have implications not only for West Bengal but also for future SIR exercises in other poll-bound states and Union Territories.