India
Former Calcutta HC Judge Biswajit Basu Resigns from 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. A court official, who asked to remain anonymous, said former High Court judge Indrajit Chatterjee had quit about 20 days earlier, citing difficulty traveling more than 20 km daily from his Salt Lake residence to the tribunal in South 24 Parganas district.
The SIR tribunals were created after controversy over the deletion of several million names from Bengal’s electoral rolls. Before the SIR process, Bengal had about 76.6 million voters; the revision removed roughly 9.1 million names, including 6.3 million earlier deletions 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. The tribunals, headed by 19 former high court and district judges, were empowered to review about six million cases.
The SIR tribunals were established after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ousted the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government in May and came to power. On June 1, the Bengal cabinet, led 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 from 2011 (when the TMC came to power) to May 2026. The commission has already begun investigating some former TMC ministers.
Former Calcutta High Court Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam was the first judge to resign from the tribunal, citing family-related issues. He was followed by former justice Ranjit Kumar Bagh. Sivagnanam was also the first judge to issue an SIR tribunal order in early April, directing the Election Commission of India to restore the name of a Congress candidate for the two‑phase assembly elections.
All India Trinamool Congress leader and lawyer Baiswanor Chatterjee reacted to Basu’s resignation by saying, “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.”