From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday sought responses within 6 weeks from the Centre, the Election Commission and the administration of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir on a petition challenging the recent delimitation increasing the assembly seats from 83 to 90 in the union territory to undertake polls and fixed the next hearing on August 30.
The petition has alleged that the delimitation exercise was supposed to be carried out on the basis of the 2011 population Census, but there was no such Census in the UT that year.
A Bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and M M Sundresh also stressed that the petitions should not mix up this petition with the issue of the revocation of Article 370 and Article 35-A that is pending separately before a Constitution Bench.
“On our specific query, learned counsel for petitioner submits that he is not assailing the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35-A of the Constitution of India. Thus, the allegations in that behalf are relevant and to be ignored,” the Bench said.
The plea also challenges the increase in number of seats from 107 to 114 (including 24 seats in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir) in the UT of 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.
The petition, filed by residents of Jammu and Kashmir, also sought a declaration that the constitution of the Delimitation Commission under the Delimitation Act 2022 is without power, jurisdiction and authority
On May 5, a three-member delimitation panel headed by Supreme Court Justice (retd) Ranjana Prakash Desai notified 90 assembly constituencies in J&K. According to the notification, seven additional constituencies have been added to the J&K assembly.
In the revised electoral map drawn by the delimitation panel, the average population of an assembly constituency in the Muslim-majority Kashmir will be 1.4 lakh, while it will be only 1.2 lakh in Jammu, which is the bastion of the Bharatiya Janata Party