SEC appeals to Supreme Court for GBA election
BENGALURU: The Karnataka State Election Commission (SEC) has officially approached the Supreme Court seeking urgent permission to utilize pre-Special Intensive Revision (SIR) electoral rolls – specifically the final voter lists as they stood on April 18, 2026 – to conduct impending municipal corporation elections across the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) jurisdiction.
The extraordinary legal move comes in response to administrative delays regarding the availability of complete, verified voter data following the Special Intensive Revision and Special Summary Revision (SSR) processes. Although a final electoral roll was published on October 27, the commission stated that the fully processed and segment-mapped digital database, incorporating necessary additions, deletions, transfers and corrections, has not yet been handed over in a usable format. According to SEC submissions, relying on newly compiled data would necessitate at least two months for ward-wise segmentation and verification, followed by another month for polling operations, making it impossible to meet existing judicial deadlines without utilizing older rolls.
In tandem with its request to use pre-SIR voter registries, the SEC has filed a formal application seeking a deadline extension until January 31, 2027, to conclude elections for the five municipal corporations under the GBA. This request seeks a modification of the Supreme Court’s previous directive issued on July 17, which had mandated completing the municipal elections by December 31, 2026, anticipating that SIR data would be accessible on schedule.
Furthermore, the Commission has petitioned the apex court to permit the conduct of pending elections for all rural panchayats and urban local bodies across Karnataka using Assembly constituency electoral rolls as they stood on October 1, 2025. SEC officials maintain that granting permission to proceed with these established legacy rolls is the only viable mechanism to ensure democratic bodies are constituted within a reasonable timeframe without compromising electoral accuracy or inviting severe administrative bottlenecks.
