Kolkata: Subrata Gupta, Election Commission’s special roll observer during the Bengal SIR exercise, on Friday said he had no information about the state CEO’s office filing several lakh appeals for exclusion of electors whose names had been cleared by judicial officers.“About 60 lakh cases were referred to judicial officers. Of these, judicial officers cleared 33 lakh names for inclusion in the voter list. These people became eligible to vote and most of them exercised their franchise,” Gupta said.Asked about the filing of 16 lakh appeals, allegedly from the Bengal CEO’s office, seeking the exclusion of electors whose names had been cleared by judicial officers, he said: “I have come to know from the media that several lakhs of appeals were filed from the Bengal CEO’s office for exclusion. I have no information in this regard. Who filed those appeals? Once the judicial officers had taken charge, we had no scope to intervene in the system.”In its counter-affidavit filed in Supreme Court on Oct 26, EC said the Bengal CEO’s office, in a communication dated Oct 22, had clarified that the appeals were filed by its officers in their capacity as authorities under the Representation of the People Act.In Nov 2025, Gupta, a retired IAS officer, was appointed as special roll observer for the SIR exercise in Bengal. He was entrusted with the responsibility to oversee that the SIR process was carried out as per EC directions and ensure that no eligible person was left out and no ineligible elector was included in voter rolls.Gupta, who currently serves as adviser to CM Suvendu Adhikari, also reasoned that up to the publication of supplementary lists, observers were responsible to ensure that those were published. “Once judicial officers came into the picture, the entire system was handed over to them. Whatever names they approved were included in supplementary lists,” he said.According to an EC affidavit submitted in Supreme Court in Sept, tribunals had received around 38 lakh appeals, of which around 1.2 lakh have been decided so far.
