Technical Glitch Briefly Put all Voters in West Bengal “Under Adjudication,” Rectified

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, Mar 25: Within hours of the Supreme Court expressing disappointment on Tuesday over the “Special Intensive Revision” of the voters list threw up so many litigations in West Bengal when the exercise was by and large completed “smoothly” in many other states, the voters list released by the Election Commission of India (ECI) showed that names of almost all the voters in the state were “under adjudication.”

The problem came to light on Tuesday night when voters attempting to access their details on the ECI website using their EPIC numbers found their status marked as “under adjudication,” even in cases where names were already included in the final electoral rolls.

An ECI official said on Wednesday that the commission was examining the cause for the technical glitch that briefly showed all voters in West Bengal as “under adjudication.” “The issue was noticed on Tuesday night and was caused by a technical error, possibly related to the server or backend integration. It has since been rectified, and we are probing the cause behind it,” the ECI official said.

The glitch occurred less than 24 hours after the ECI released the first supplementary list of voters around midnight on Monday. “At one point, the system erroneously reflected that all electors in the State were under adjudication. This was not the case, and it was purely a display error,” the official said. The development prompted sharp reactions from the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC), which alleged that the error had effectively put the entire electorate under suspicion.

The party claimed on social media that even valid voters were being shown as “under adjudication” despite their cases being resolved or their names being present in the final rolls. “We regret the inconvenience caused to voters. The technical teams acted swiftly, and the issue was resolved within approximately two hours,” the official said.

The West Bengal chief minister and the TMC chief Mamata Banerjee, who is continuously at the loggerheads with the ECI over the SIR issue, did not spare the commission. While addressing a rally in Naxalbari, Ms Banerjee said the BJP should be ashamed for causing 220 SIR deaths. “BJP should be ashamed for causing 220 SIR deaths, half of which were Hindus and other half Muslims,” Ms Banerjee said.

Lashing out at BJP, Ms Banerjee said, “BJP eliminated names of Adivasis from electoral rolls, TMC government showered them with welfare schemes.” Talking about NRC (National Register of Citizens), CM Mamata said, “Till the time I am around, there will be no NRC, no detention camps in Bengal.”

The Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant only on Tuesday had commented on the continuous hurdles in the SIR Exercise in West Bengal when the process was completed in several other states smoothly. “Whether the State is governed by A, B or C political party… Other than West Bengal, the SIR in every other State has happened smoothly. By and large, there is hardly any litigation,” the Chief Justice, heading a Bench, had remarked.

Senior advocate and MP for the ruling Trinamool Congress in poll-bound West Bengal, Kalyan Bandhopadhyay, had pointed out that West Bengal was the only state in which the Election Commission came up with the ‘logical discrepancy’ criterion to purge electors. He said lakhs of people were on the brink of losing their right to vote in the Assembly elections in April 2026.

Justice Joymalya Bagchi, on the Bench, observed there was no point in saying West Bengal had “thrown up a unique problem.” “Other States also had their own issues. We are not going to dwell on the uniqueness of the issue, but address the ground reality that in a State the fundamental and constitutional rights to participate in an election is to be protected. That is the bottom line for us,” Justice Bagchi had said.

Senior advocate Shyam Divan, for the West Bengal government, had pointed out that over 60 lakh cases of exclusions from the State electoral roll were under adjudication as on March 23. He said the first supplementary list of voters showed 27 lakh cases of claims and objections were disposed of by judicial officers functioning as Election Registration Officers (EROs) in an all-out effort to complete the SIR before the Assembly polls.

Mr Divan said the first phase of polling would cover 152 constituencies in the State. The last date of filing nomination for this phase was April 6. The polling date was April 23. He said the Representation of the People Act, 1950 required freezing of the electoral roll seven days before the last date of the filing of nomination forms. Similarly, the second phase covered 142 constituencies. The last date for nomination was April 9, and the polling was scheduled on April 29.

“At the rate of disposal of cases under adjudication in the last 30 days, it would be extremely difficult for judicial officers, in spite of their best efforts, to complete the process of adjudication in respect of the first phase by April 6 or by April 9 for the second phase,” Mr Divan voiced the State’s concern. He pointed out that there were at least 14 candidates of “a political party” who were presently marked ‘under adjudication’.

“They will not be able to file their nomination by April 6 if their cases are not disposed of by then… Candidates whose cases are under adjudication, their cases may be expedited and be taken up on a priority basis. Supplementary lists may be published on a daily basis,” the senior advocate urged the court for directions.

He suggested that electors whose cases continue to be under adjudication after the last date must be allowed their right to vote in the Assembly elections. In many instances they might have been voters in the previous elections. Mr Divan reminded the Supreme Court of its assurance, along with that of the Election Commission, that no eligible voter would be left out of the election process.

“The Supreme Court has to ensure this promise,” Mr Divan submitted. He said the court could consider directing the freezing of the electoral roll seven days prior to the two polling dates, rather than the last day of filing nomination forms.