Mostari Bannu, a 44-year-old housewife from Bagabangula village in Murshidabad district, who was the first person from West Bengal to move the Supreme Court against the Election Commission of India’s Special Intensive Review (SIR) of electoral rolls, finds herself waiting for adjudication of the final post-SIR rolls.
In the final electoral roll, released on February 28, Pannu’s name appeared in Ward 2 (Manek Mandalur Pada) of the 62nd Bagabangula Assembly constituency, stamped “under dismissal”, indicating that her voter status was still pending judicial review.
Pannu, the lead petitioner in the case against SIR in West Bengal, is among 6,006,675 names marked under judicial adjudication – a process in which judges evaluate individual cases before including or deleting them from the lists – in the final list. The SIR exercise, which began in the state on November 4 last year, saw around 6.17 million names deleted from the final lists.
The final list has been released on the Supreme Court’s directions even as adjudication by judicial officials continues, leaving the option of supplementary lists at a later stage.
Bano had filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court in November 2025, weeks after ECI announced the SIR decision in the eastern state. She initially opposed the Indian Election Commission’s requirements for passport-sized photographs on census forms, arguing that they forced Muslim women, who are obligated to cover their heads and foreheads, to choose between their “religion and their right to vote.” Hours before the first hearing on November 10, Export Credit International clarified that photos were not mandatory.
However, her challenge soon expanded to include attacking the entire SIR framework—particularly the “logical inconsistency” criteria that discriminate voters for reasons such as age mismatches, discrepancies in parental names, and anomalies in household data.
In Pannu’s plea, the Supreme Court issued several key directions with regard to the SIR exercise in West Bengal, including appointment of judicial officers, admission of Class 10 marks as proof of age, and other facilitative measures. In her petition against the Election Commission of India, Pannu had objected to the classification of voters under “logical discrepancies”, including age mismatches, discrepancies in parents’ names and unusual gaps in family data, which she claimed affected nearly 14 million voters, particularly in the Muslim-majority areas of Murshidabad and Malda – both of which border Bangladesh.
The two areas certainly account for the largest number of voters who were marked “under segregation” by the IEC in the final list. While Murshidabad has 1.1 million such voters, Malda has registered nearly 800,000 such voters.
Notably, it is the Bannu case in which West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee appeared in person and argued before the Supreme Court in the relevant proceedings.
Based on the petition, the Supreme Court first recorded ECI’s clarification on November 10 last year that photographs were not mandatory, and later on January 19, 2026, directed the public display of discrepancy lists, allowed authorized representatives to file claims, and granted additional time for submissions. Last month, citing a “lack of confidence”, the Supreme Court directed the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court to appoint current and former judicial officers to adjudicate pending cases – a process that is ongoing while the case awaits final disposition.
