Biswajit Basu becomes fourth former Calcutta HC judge to quit Bengal SIR tribunal
Former Calcutta high court judge Biswajit Basu resigned from the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) tribunal on Saturday, citing personal reasons, becoming the fourth judge to step down.
“He submitted his resignation to high court Chief Justice Ravindra Vithalrao Ghuge, citing personal reasons. Former high court judge Indrajit Chatterjee quit around 20 days ago, saying he had difficulty travelling more than 20 km every day from his Salt Lake residence to the tribunal in South 24 Parganas district,” a court official said, requesting anonymity.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ousted the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government in May this year and came to power.
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On June 1, the Bengal cabinet, headed by chief minister Suvendu Adhikari, decided to form a commission headed by retired judge Basu to investigate institutional corruption, bribery, extortion, recruitment irregularities and other issues across state departments between 2011, (when the TMC came to power), and May 2026.
The commission already started investigating some former TMC ministers.
The SIR tribunals were formed amid a controversy over the deletion of a few million names from Bengal’s electoral rolls.
There were around 76.6 million voters in Bengal before the SIR process began. The revision led to the removal of around 9.1 million names. This included the earlier deletion of around 6.3 million names and an additional 2.7 million voters declared ineligible after adjudication.
On March 10, the Supreme Court directed the formation of appellate tribunals in West Bengal to address grievances against the SIR. Headed by 19 former high court and district judges, the tribunals were empowered to review around six million cases. These voters’ names had been flagged for “logical discrepancies”, such as age mismatches and progeny-linking issues.
Former Calcutta high court chief justice TS Sivagnanam was the first to resign from the tribunal, citing family-related issues. He was followed by former justice Ranjit Kumar Bagh.
Justice Sivagnanam was also the first judge to pass an SIR tribunal order in early April. He directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to restore the name of a Congress candidate for the two-phase assembly elections, which were imminent at the time.
Reacting to former justice Basu’s resignation, All India Trinamool Congress leader and lawyer Baiswanor Chatterjee said, “The empanelled judges have heard very few appeals so far. What is the use of this tribunal?”
State BJP spokesperson Sayantan Basu said, “There is no reason to read anything into this. Justice Basu is heading the inquiry commission which is probing crucial corruption cases. Probably he is not being able to spare time.”
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