Kolkata: 200 officers to join adjudication; Mamata plans dharna over rolls

A surge in judicial manpower is headed to kolkata this weekend as 200 judicial officers from Jharkhand and Odisha will join the ongoing judicial adjudication of voter documents, and West Bengal's chief minister is set to stage a dharna over voter roll revision in the city. The deployments and planned protest come as the electoral exercise faces a large caseload and a packed review schedule in the first half of March.

Kolkata: Mamata's planned dharna

The chief minister's decision to stage a dharna centers on voter roll revision in Kolkata. The protest is framed around concerns with the revision process; further details about timing and venues for the dharna were provided in the public announcement and are part of the developing political response to the voter-list exercise.

200 officers to join adjudication

Two hundred judicial officers from Jharkhand and Odisha will reach West Bengal by Saturday and will join the judicial adjudication process from March 9. They will undergo a two-day training programme on the adjudication procedure over the weekend and, from Monday, will join the team of judicial officers already conducting reviews. With their arrival, the total number of judicial officers involved in the adjudication process will rise to 732.

Most of these visiting officers will be deployed in kolkata, while a smaller number will be posted to district towns listed for strengthened adjudication capacity: Bardhaman in East Midnapore district, Asansol in West Burdwan district, Kharagpur in West Midnapore district, and Siliguri in Darjeeling district. Accommodation for the visiting officers has been arranged mainly closer to the airport in Kolkata and near important railway stations in the city and the named districts.

Voter list, cases and timetable

The final voters' list in West Bengal, excluding cases referred for judicial adjudication, was published on February 28; a supplementary list is to be published in due course under earlier court orders. More than 60 lakh cases were referred for judicial adjudication, and the adjudication process had been completed for around five lakh of those cases by Thursday night, leaving a substantial backlog.

A full bench of the Election Commission will arrive in Kolkata on the night of March 8 with a packed schedule over the following two days to review both the ongoing judicial exercise and poll preparedness. A crucial hearing on the Special Intensive Revision and related judicial adjudication is scheduled at the Supreme Court on March 10. Those calendar markers frame the immediate timeline for completing reviews and for publication of supplementary updates to the electoral rolls.

• Key takeaway: 200 visiting judicial officers will raise adjudication strength to 732, with most posted in Kolkata.
• Key takeaway: Over 60 lakh cases were referred for adjudication; about five lakh had been processed by Thursday night, and a March 10 Supreme Court hearing is on the calendar.

The arrival of additional judicial officers and the impending review by the election authority create operational pressure to accelerate adjudication ahead of the Supreme Court hearing. If the current processing pace—around five lakh completed so far—does not materially increase, a significant portion of referred cases will remain pending when the bench convenes. The coming days will show whether the influx of adjudicators and the central review schedule reduce that backlog ahead of the supplementary list publication.