SC to deliver judgement on J&K delimitation on February 13

The Supreme Court is scheduled to deliver its judgement on Monday challenging the delimitation of assembly and parliamentary constituencies undertaken in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

The apex court will pronounce the judgment on the petition filed by Srinagar residents-Haji Abdul Gani Khan and Muhammad Ayub Matto. The Bench comprising justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and A S Oka after hearing the submissions of Senior Advocate Ravi Shankar Jandhyala, representing the petitioners in December had reserved the judgment.

In March 2020, the Center set up a Delimitation Commission for J&K to redraw Assembly and Parliament seats in accordance with J&K Reorganization Act-2019. The exercise was completed on May 5 2022 when the delimitation panel unveiled its final order.

The primary challenge of the petitioners to the impugned notifications was on the touchstone of the scheme envisaged in Article 170(3) of the Constitution of India. The counsel for the petitioners argued that the said provision had frozen delimitation till the first census after 2026.

The petition filed through Advocate-on-Record Sriram Parakkat asserts that the impugned Delimitation notification, which directed the process of delimitation to be carried out in UT of J&K to be done on the basis of the 2011 population census, is unconstitutional as no population census operation was carried out in 2011 for UT of J&K.

The plea also challenges the increase in the number of seats from 107 to 114 (including 24 seats in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir) in Jammu and Kashmir to be ultra vires Articles 81, 82, 170, 330 and 332 of the Constitution and Section 63 of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019.