Kolkata: In November 2025, Mostari Banu, a homemaker from Murshidabad’s Bhagwangola constituency in West Bengal, filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in the state. Banu was the first to file the petition against the exercise, and the case came into the limelight after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee appeared in the court to argue against the SIR.In staggering irony, her name is currently “under adjudication” as per the final list published by the ECI. Mostari’s is among millions of under-adjudication cases in West Bengal, where everyone from a World Cup-winning cricketer to the very judicial officers currently verifying documents, from the chief secretary to ministers, and even a close relative of the Supreme Court judge presiding over the SIR case currently find their names under a cloud.Mostari Banu with her husband (left) and CPI(M)’s Mohammad Selim. Photo: By arrangement.Attending an all-night protest organised by the Left parties outside the Chief Electoral Officer’s offices in Kolkata, Banu said, “I was the first one to file the petition. We are on dharna to protect people’s rights. From the Supreme Court to the BDO office, protests are ongoing. People are uniting against this planned attempt to remove names and snatch away citizens’ rights.” Her protest has become a focal point for wider political allegations that the revision process is not merely a technical update, but a source of systemic harassment and mass disenfranchisement.Indian cricketer Richa Ghosh, currently in Australia representing the country, is also “under adjudication.” In an official clarification, the ECI stated that although a relative attended the hearing and submitted documents, the case was not disposed of by the local Assistant Electoral Registration Officer or Electoral Registration Officer. “A person who is representing the country today on Australian soil is having her citizenship questioned by the government. Richa and her sister were born in this city and have voted for years. Now the Commission has doubts about their citizenship. This is astonishing hostility, an insult to Indian sports and to women,” Siliguri Mayor Gautam Deb told The Wire.The under-adjudication tag has not spared even the state’s top hierarchy. Nandini Chakravorty, the state’s first woman chief secretary and a 1994-batch IAS officer, found her name flagged as well, prompting Vibhu Goel, the District Election Officer, Kolkata South, to depute officials to her residence to conduct a hearing. Despite this high-level intervention, her case, along with millions of others, has been marked as under adjudication.Also read: Bengal Has 62 Lakh ‘Under Adjudication’ Electors. Here’s Why That Number Is Significant.This systemic uncertainty has even filtered down to the election machinery itself, and several Booth Level Officers (BLOs) have found their own names in the pending category. These are the very people who have worked under significant pressure, occasionally facing public anger from voters whose names were deleted or flagged without any clear explanation.The crisis has now breached the inner circles of both the state government and the judiciary. The names of att least two senior Trinamool Congress ministers, Shashi Panja and Mohammad Ghulam Rabbani, have been marked “under adjudication” in the draft voter list, further fuelling allegations of high-level administrative oversight. The controversy took a more personal turn on March 4 when TMC supporters released a screenshot of 86-year-old Baikuntha Bagchi, reportedly the uncle of Justice Joymalya Bagchi, the Supreme Court judge currently presiding over the SIR-related cases. In a detail that underscores the reported clerical chaos, Justice Bagchi’s own name is spelled incorrectly in the Bengali version of the voter list.A two-time Panchayat Pradhan, a two-time MLA from Baduria, and a former high school teacher, Mohammad Selim was served a notice and summoned for a hearing, only to have his status relegated to the under adjudication category. Selim told the Wire, “I have taught here for years and also served as a public representative. Even after that, I don’t understand how this is possible. People in the area are becoming angry hearing all this. I don’t know what is going on!” Mohammad Dual Ali, a Kargil veteran who had received injuries in combat, was also brought “under adjudication” despite providing documents from the Indian Army.Kargil veteran Mohammad Dual Ali. Photo: By arrangement.“With deep sorrow and concern, I saw my name marked “under adjudication. “Not only that, the names of three other members of my family, two daughters and one son, have also been included in the adjudication list, despite one being a judicial officer,” said Ali.The Left parties have been protesting against the list yesterday and today. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will stage a sit-in protest in Kolkata tomorrow.