HC demands state's clarification as lakhs 'deleted from SIR' lose welfare benefits

The Calcutta High Court on Thursday issued a stern directive to the West Bengal state government, demanding a formal clarification regarding the controversial suspension of core welfare benefits for citizens excluded from the Special Intensified Revision (SIR) electoral database. A division bench, presided over by acting Chief Justice Tapobrata Chakraborty and Justice Parthasarathy Chatterjee, heard a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) challenging a recent state notification. The bench ordered the state administration to submit its official response detailing the legal parameters of these exclusions by July 21, 2026.

The legal challenge, filed by the Paschimbanga Khetmajdour Samity, targets a state decree which explicitly mandates that eligibility for basic sustenance programs—including the central subsidized ration system and the Annapurna Yojana welfare scheme—will be strictly determined by active placement on the updated SIR registry. The petitioner organization voiced severe concerns that this aggressive database filtering will catastrophically deprive the state's most vulnerable populations, specifically daily wage laborers, migrant workers, marginalized rural women, and impoverished families, of essential food security. They argued that stopping these state benefits flatly violates the statutory provisions laid out in India's National Food Security Act of 2013, which guarantees subsidized food grains as a fundamental legal right to all underprivileged citizens regardless of administrative blockages.

Representing the state government, Advocate General Surajit Nath Mitra stated that the administration requires a detailed window of observation to thoroughly audit the field reality. He assured the high court bench that a complete investigation will be executed to systematically map out exactly which demographics saw their names completely purged during the digital cleanup drive and who among them faced a subsequent termination of their monthly kitchen provisions. The state counsel committed to updating the judiciary on what structural corrective measures the government plans to deploy after compiling the localized data.