SC issues notice to Centre on Delimitation Commission

SC issues notice to Centre on Delimitation Commission
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

NEW DELHI, JAN 4: The Supreme Court today issued notice to the Centre on a petition seeking reconstitution of the Delimitation Commission to consider delimiting the Assembly constitutencies in the country.

Issuing notices to the Union Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and Ministry of Law, a division bench comprising Justice B N Kiripal and Justice Ruma Pal directed them to file replies to the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) by a Chennai-based advocate on the issue.

The PIL, filed by P T Vasuthevan, said the Centre had made the Delimitation Commission defunct for the past 24 years by not appointing its members despite the provision for the same under Section 3 of Delimitation Commission Act, 1972.

This had resulted in constitutencies declared as reserved in 1957 to continue to be so, depriving large sections of their voters from contesting elections, Vasuthevan's lawyer V Ramasubramanian contended.

Citing the example of Ponneri Assembly Constituency in Tamil Nadu, Ramasubramanian said for the past 43 years only people belonging to Scheduled Caste had been able to contest polls from this seat and aspirants of other communities had no opportunity to stand for election.

The petition also filed a Special Leave Petition (SLP) against the Madras High Court order dismissing his writ for direction to Centre regarding reconstituting the Commission.

The petitioner said restriction of period of reservation provided under Article 334 of the Constitution and enactment of the Delimitation Act, were intended to be ``safety valves to ensure that equality before law guaranteed in the Constitution is not nullified totally by such reservation''.

``But by not filling up the vacancies in the Commission for 24 years after its two members relinquished their office in 1976, the Government has destroyed these safety valves,'' the PIL said.

Under the provisions of Delimitation Commission Act, the Government shall constitute a three-member delimitation panel comprising of two judges of Supreme Court or High Courts besides the Chief Election Commissioner, the petition said.

Section 8 of the Act empowers the Commission to determine the total number of seats assigned to each State Assembly and number of seats reserved for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes on the basis of the latest census figure.

Section 9 of the Act further provides for the Commission to delimit the constituencies and distribute reserved seats in different parts of the states with reference to the proportion of population, the PIL said adding that in 1975 Thiruvallore assembly seat in Tamil Nadu was de-reserved after the Commission constituted earlier, gave recommendation for the same.

Ramasubramanian told the court that the Chief Election Commissioner M S Gill, in his reply to a letter by petitioner, had said that the ``Delimitation Commission is appointed by Parliament and EC unfortunately cannot take action in this regard.''