Plea In Supreme Court Questions Mamata Banerjee’s Appearance In Supreme Court

The application has been filed by Satish Kumar Aggarwal, former vice president of the Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha, seeking intervention in the writ petition instituted by Banerjee against the ongoing SIR exercise in West Bengal.

On February 4, Banerjee became the first serving chief minister to personally address the Supreme Court while arguing her petition. Banerjee, in her submissions had alleged that the SIR was not an addition exercise but effectively a deletion exercise. She submitted that people often change residences due to marriage or employment, and women frequently change their names after marriage, which can cause a mismatch in identity document details. Moreover, the Chief Minister had accused the ECI of targeting opposition-ruled states, including West Bengal, on the eve of elections.

She had also contended that a process that should have taken two years was being compressed into three months, claiming that over 100 booth-level officers had died during the exercise. Banerjee had further alleged that documents such as domicile certificates were not being accepted and that micro observers, who are appointed by the ECI, were being given the authority to delete names without any hearing to the aggrieved person. Interjecting, the Chief Justice said the court understood that Banerjee was aggrieved but assured her that counsel appearing in the connected petitions were placing the issues before the court exhaustively.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and N V Anjaria is scheduled to hear on Monday, i.e. February 9, a batch of petitions concerning the SIR process in West Bengal, including Banerjee’s plea.

In his intervention application, Aggarwal contended that the subject matter of Banerjee’s writ petition does not involve a personal or private grievance but raises issues of state governance and the constitutional exercise of powers by the Election Commission of India in conducting electoral roll revisions.

“The subject matter of the aforesaid writ petition filed by the petitioner is not a personal or private dispute, but concerns matters of state governance and the constitutional exercise of powers by the Election Commission of India,” the application stated.

According to the applicant, the issues raised in the petition directly implicate the institutional functioning of the state of West Bengal and its constitutional relationship with the Election Commission. In such circumstances, it was argued, Banerjee could not claim to appear before the court in her personal capacity.

The application asserted that any representation in a matter of this nature must necessarily be through duly appointed advocates representing the state of West Bengal. It further pointed out that the state is already adequately represented through its appointed counsel in the proceedings.

“No occasion arises for the personal appearance of the incumbent Chief Minister in proceedings of such nature,” the plea stated.

Describing the February 4 appearance as problematic, the applicant submitted that the personal participation of a sitting chief minister in court proceedings where professional legal representation is already in place is “constitutionally improper, institutionally undesirable, and legally untenable”.

It was further contended that such appearances run contrary to settled judicial conventions, established court practices, and principles of judicial discipline.

Earlier, on February 4, the Supreme Court had issued notice on Banerjee’s petition and sought responses from the Election Commission of India and the Chief Electoral Officer of West Bengal by February 9.

The apex court had also, on January 19, issued a series of directions concerning the SIR exercise, observing that the process must remain transparent and should not cause inconvenience to voters.

Previously in January, the court had issued directions aimed at ensuring transparency and fairness in the SIR process after hearing a batch of petitions alleging inconvenience and arbitrariness in voter verification.

Notably, the ECI has filed an affidavit informing the Supreme Court that West Bengal government has been threatening ECI suggesting that the deletion of names during the SIR would constitute “playing with fire”. "In continuation of the aforementioned conduct, the Hon’ble Chief Minister, on 14.01.2026 conducted a Press Conference in which she is reported to have engaged in fear-mongering, disseminated misleading and erroneous information regarding the SIR process, overtly threatened and targeted election officials, and sought to incite alarm amongst the electorate. It is also reported that the Hon’ble Chief Minister, during her reported speech, explicitly identified and targeted a Micro Observer, Shri Hari Das, thereby publicly isolating an election official performing statutory duties and subjecting him to unwarranted pressure and intimidation," the affidavit adds.