J&K an exception, no delimitation exercise prior to 2026 Census: SC
Jammu and Kashmir
, the Supreme Court on Friday said delimitation exercises for other states cannot be conducted prior to publication of data of first census after 2026 as that would be against the mandate of Article 170(3) of the Constitution.
"The delimitation process is, by design, a legislative and executive function. If the SC were to compel carrying out of delimitation exercise (in a particular state) through a judicial fiat, it would likely be construed as an interference in the policy-making prerogative of the Executive," said a bench of Justices Surya Kant and N K Singh.
Writing the judgment for the bench, Justice Kant said, "The Constitutional edifice carefully balances institutional roles, and any disruption of that equilibrium would undermine both the legitimacy and functional integrity of the democratic process."
The bench said the constitutional mandate under Article 170(3) bars any delimitation exercise concerning states of
Andhra Pradesh
and
Telangana
or any other state. It dismissed a writ petition challenging the Centre's decision to conduct delimitation only for J&K and not for Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, saying the constitutional mandate - delimitation exercise based on first census after 2026 - does not apply to UTs. The petitioner's counsel Rao Ranjit said that though J&K Reorganisation Act was passed in 2019, the delimitation exercise was carried out under the 2020 notification, but even though the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act was passed in 2014, the delimitation exercise had not been carried out for these two states even after a decade.
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Solicitor general Tushar Mehta along with ASG K M Nataraj for the Centre said as per the mandate of Articles 80 and 170 of the Constitution, no readjustment of seats or divisions of states into territorial constituencies can be undertaken until the relevant data from first census conducted after 2026 is published. For the Election Commission, senior advocate Maninder Singh said the EC has no jurisdiction to opine on the validity of delimitation exercise as its role is only to facilitate implementation of the process.
The SC accepted the Centre's stand and said the AP Reorganisation Act is subject to the constitutional provisions, as expressly provided in the Act itself. If delimitation exercise is allowed to be carried out in some states, then it would open a flood gate of similar demands from the other states, he said. The bench said the petitioner cannot seek to draw delimitation parity between states of AP and Telangana with that of the Union Territory of J&K, to which Article 170(3) has no application.
Though it acknowledged legitimate expectations of people of the two states for delimitation exercise, it ruled that such expectations cannot override constitutional mandate.
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