Polity · 13 Aug 2026

West Bengal SIR Appellate Tribunals

Consider the following statements regarding the Supreme Court's intervention in West Bengal's Special Intensive Revision (SIR):

  1. The Supreme Court took supervisory control of the SIR in March 2026, citing a "trust deficit" between the state administration and the Election Commission.
  2. 19 independent Appellate Tribunals headed by former Supreme Court judges were ordered to hear voter-exclusion grievances.
  3. On August 11-12, the Supreme Court fixed a binding timeline for the tribunals to dispose of all pending appeals.
AOnly one
BOnly two
CAll three
DNone
This question is based on: SC Seeks EC Data on SIR Appeal Disposals in Bengal, Refuses to Fix a Timeline
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About this question

Why in news

With an estimated 34 lakh appeals pending before the tribunals, the Supreme Court on August 11-12, 2026 declined to fix a disposal timeline but directed the Election Commission to place tribunal disposal data on record, with the matter next listed for August 25.

Why for UPSC

This tests the classic UPSC trap of conflating similar-sounding judicial safeguards - enforcing transparency (data disclosure) is not the same as enforcing timeliness (a binding deadline) and precise designations (High Court vs Supreme Court judges) are a recurring source of distractors.

Prelims summary

The SC's West Bengal SIR intervention (March 2026) created 19 Appellate Tribunals of former High Court judges; as of August 2026 it has ordered data disclosure on the ~34 lakh pending appeals but has not fixed a disposal deadline.

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