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| High Court dismisses delimitation petitions | | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
Srinagar, June 2: Dismissing two Public Interest Litigations, filed by Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party and Sheikh Abdur Rehman State President Samajwadi Party, challenging the postponement of Delimitation of State Assembly seats till 2026 (meaning 2031), a Division Bench of J&K High Court comprising Chief Justice Barin Ghosh and Justice Mansoor Ahmed Mir, in its judgment observed that while delimitation for the purpose of diving the state into a single member territorial constituencies to the extent of number of the members of the legislative assembly is the mandate of the Constitution, but readjustment of the extent and boundaries of such territorial constituencies upon completion of each census is not a mandate, nor it the basic structure of democracy contemplated in the Constitution. In the event no census has taken place, there would be no readjustment and there being no mandate in the Constitution to take census, readjustment of the extent and boundaries of territorial constituencies is an uncertainty and accordingly, cannot be said to be the basic feature of democracy contemplated in the Constitution.
In the approved for reporting judgment written by Chief Justice Barin Ghosh, the Division Bench pointed out that the petition was filed in the Jammu Wing of the State High Court and apart from the petitioner many others showed keen interest in the matter and the DB heard all those who wanted to make their submissions, besides the Advocate General at Jammu as well as Srinagar and lastly heard the petitioner in reply at Jammu.
In the 23- page judgment, which was announced today at Srinagar Wing of the State High Court, the DB observed that it is true that delimitation in terms of the structure of democracy provided in the Constitution is a must, in as much as people of the state are not entitled to have a say in the matter of election of each of the members of the legislative assembly mentioned in sub-section (I) of section 47 of the Constitution. They have right to chose only one such member from one territorial constituency by such part of the people who are within such constituency and at the same time, it is also true that population at a place is not static it increases or decreases for many a reason. People move from one place to other and in particular to greener pastures. It is known fact that in order to have amenities of cities people move from villages to cities. Then again, when a census is taken the location of the people comes to be known. In order to enable the democracy, as contemplated in the Constitution, to remain functional, it has been mandated that upon each census the extent and boundaries of territorial constituencies shall be readjusted. The purpose and object is to ensure that the number of voters in such constituencies remains the same, but that is not a strict mandate. In other words readjustment of extent and boundaries of constituencies does not require, in the scheme of the Constitution, that each constituency shall have exactly same number of voters. In the Constitution of India the mandate is so far practicable; this mandate was also in the original Constitution of the state before amendment of sub-section (2) of section 47. After amendment of this section as stands now nothing further has been added to denote, nor any other provision of the Constitution mandates that the number of voters of each constituency must be the same. Though there is a mandate to readjust the extent and boundaries of the territorial constituencies upon completion of each census, but there is no provision either in the Constitution of the state or in the Constitution of India mandating census to be taken.
Referring to the judgment of Supreme Court of United States of America, in case Baker Vs Care that each voter’s vote should have the same weight or value, the DB observed that right to equality as granted to the citizens of this country, does not entail exact equality in the matter of weight of the vote of the voter by reason of the other provisions contained in the Constitution of India containing specific word, so far as practicable in relation to division of territorial constituencies. Delimitation of the state having been done by dividing the same into single member territorial constituencies to the extent of the number of the members of the legislative assembly, postponement of the delimitation for readjustment of extent and boundaries of the Constituencies until the relevant figures for the first census taken after the year 2026 have been published being not such essential part of the democracy contemplated in the Constitution that the amendment of the Constitution authorizing the same, can be said to have affected democracy, a basic feature of the Constitution and accordingly can be declared to either ultra-virus the Constitution or beyond the amending power of the legislative assembly. With these observations, the DB dismissed both the Public Interest Litigations. JNF
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