The Supreme Court on Monday asked a petitioner to submit a detailed report before it on the allegations that the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes have not got proportionate representation in the country particularly in Karnataka according to the last census in the Delimitation Commission report.

A bench of Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, Justices Altamas Kabir and J M Panchal asked the petitioner to file the details on the population of SC and ST communities, the seats allotted to them before and in the delimitation commission report.

Petitioner Virendra Kumar in a public suit said, “Order or issue a direction directing the respondent (Election Commission) to do its constitutional duties under the Article 332 of the Constitution by reserving 36 seats for SCs instead of 33 and 15 seats for the STs instead of 2 seats in the coming elections to be held in 2008 to the Legislative Assembly of Karnataka.”

The bench, which restrained from issuing notices to the Election Commission and the Union government, asked the petitioner to bring before it the copies of latest 2001 census and with state-wise break up showing the rise of the Dalit population.

Kumar, a retired teacher from Himachal Pradesh, pointed out that the Constitution under Article 330 and 332 provides for reservation to schedule castes and tribes respectively in Parliament and state assemblies in proportion to their latest population.

Citing examples of seats reserved for Dalits in various state assemblies as per the latest delimitation conducted by the Delimitation Commission, headed by Justice Kuldeep Singh, Kumar alleged that the number of seats reserved for Dalits in those assemblies have gone down significantly.