New Delhi: The 128th Amendment Bill introduced in Parliament Tuesday provides for one-third reservation of seats for women, including those belonging to SCs/STs, in the Lok Sabha. A similar reservation is mandated in state legislatures, including the Delhi assembly. These two amendments are being made through the inclusion of Articles 330A and 332A.
The Bill also proposes to insert one more article, which is 334A that says “reservation of seats for women shall come into effect after an exercise of delimitation is undertaken for this purpose after the relevant figures for the first census taken after the commencement of the Constitution (one Hundred and Twenty-Eighth Amendment) Act, 2023 have been published and shall cease to have effect on the expiration of the fifteen years from such commencement”.
Article 334A further says that rotation of seats reserved for women in the Lok Sabha, the legislative assembly of a state or the Delhi assembly shall take effect after each subsequent exercise of delimitation. It shall not affect the present representation in the Lok Sabha or state assemblies.
A conjoint reading of the three new Articles makes it clear that women reservation can be enforced only after a delimitation exercise is over. And before this process is undertaken, it will be imperative for the Modi government to conduct the Census, which in turn will become the foundation for carrying out delimitation exercise.
In view of the importance attached to the delimitation process, ThePrint explains what this procedure is and why it is relevant for our electoral democracy.
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What is delimitation
According to the Election Commission (EC) website, delimitation “literally means the act or process of fixing limits or boundaries of territorial constituencies in a country or a province having a legislative body”.
It is done to reflect the demographic changes in a state, Union Territory or at the national-level — the underlying logic being that a set number of voters have one representative in the Lok Sabha as well as in the state assemblies across the country. Hence, this exercise is carried out after every census.
Delimitation is a constitutional exercise and is conducted as per the procedure prescribed in Article 82 of the Constitution. This article finds a mention in Chapter 2 of the Constitution that outlines the constitution and composition of Parliament, qualification of its membership and its session, among other things.
Article 82 talks about readjustment of Lok Sabha and state assembly seats after each census. For this, the Parliament has to frame a law that would authorise a Delimitation Commission to take up the exercise of redrawing the territorial constituencies. Promulgation of such a law is as per the requirement under Article 327 which says Parliament may from time to time, by law, make provision with respect to all matters in connection with the elections, including delimitation of constituencies. Article 329 bars a challenge to the validity of such a law before any court.
How is delimitation done
Once Parliament enacts a Delimitation Act, the Centre constitutes a Delimitation Commission headed by a retired Supreme Court judge. The orders of this high-powered body are legally binding and not subject to scrutiny of any court of law. Even Parliament cannot suggest modifications to an order issued by the commission, which also constitutes the Chief Election Commissioner or any of the two Election Commissioners. In case the exercise is specifically for a state, the election commissioner of that state is also a member of the commission.
Since the commission is a temporary body, without any permanent staff, it takes the assistance of EC employees to carry out the long-drawn exercise. Census data for each district, tehsil and gram panchayat is collected, and the new boundaries are demarcated.
The exercise can take up to five years, which concludes after the commission examines population data, existing constituencies, the number of seats to be analysed, as well as holds meetings with all the stakeholders and submits its recommendation to the government.
The commission’s draft report is published in the Gazette of India for seeking feedback from the general public. The feedback is studied and required changes are made in the final report.
The commission’s recommendation comes into force on a date specified by the President. The copies of its orders are laid before the Lok Sabha and the legislative assembly concerned, but no modifications are permissible.
Delimitation in the past
The Delimitation Commissions were set up in 1952, 1963, 1972 and 2002. However, the number of Lok Sabha constituencies were not revised since 1972, which was based on the 1971 Census. At present, there are 543 Lok Sabha seats.
Though a Delimitation Commission was set up in 2002 under Justice (retired) Kuldip Singh, after the 2001 Census, its recommendations remained on paper due to the 84th constitutional amendment that froze delimitation exercise or readjustment of Parliamentary constituencies till 2026. The exercise was kept on hold for 25 years so as to allow states to check their population. The tenure of this commission was extended twice, and it gave its report in December 2007.
Next delimitation exercise
The decennial census exercise that was to be conducted in 2021 was postponed indefinitely due to the Covid pandemic. In June last week, the Registrar General of India issued an order, saying the census was extended and would be frozen with effect from 1 January, 2024. The next census is expected to be the first digital census, giving the citizens an opportunity to self-enumerate.
The census will be followed by a delimitation exercise. As per the Centre’s affidavit in the Supreme Court, the strength of the Lok Sabha is likely to go up from 543 to 888 and that of Rajya Sabha may climb to 384 from the existing 245. The government had filed this affidavit while defending the construction of a new Parliament building, which was challenged before the top court.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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