The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a petition challenging notifications for delimitation of assembly constituencies in the newly created Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
A Bench of Justice SK Kaul and Justice AS Oka, however, clarified that it had not ruled on the validity of the Jammu & Kashmir Re-organisation Act, 2019, which is pending before another Bench of the top court which is examining the petitions challenging abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution.
Detailed verdict is expected to be available by this evening.
The Centre had defended the delimitation exercise in Jammu and Kashmir before the Supreme Court, saying the delimitation commission set up to redraw the Legislative Assembly and Lok Sabha constituencies in newly formed union territory was empowered to do so.
The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, didn’t preclude the establishment of Delimitation Commission by the Centre, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had told the Bench.
The top court had on December 1 reserved its verdict on the petition filed by Srinagar residents Haji Abdul Gani Khan and Mohammad Ayub Mattoo against the delimitation exercise.
The petitioners questioned the increase in the number of seats from 83 to 90 (excluding 24 seats in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir) in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir recommended by the Delimitation Commission headed by former Supreme Court judge Ranjana Prakash Desai, contending it went against Articles 81, 82, 170, 330 and 332 of the Constitution and statutory provisions, particularly Section 63 of the Jammu & Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019. The number of seats in the assembly could not have been increased, they insisted.
“All this is to be done by the Election Commission…The Election Commission cannot abdicate its authority and give it away to the Delimitation Commission,” senior counsel Ravi Shankar Jandhyala had told the Bench.
However, Mehta had said the delimitation exercise had become final and it couldn’t be challenged in courts. He rejected the petitioners’ contention that only the Election Commission was empowered to conduct the delimitation exercise under the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, saying “Sections 61 and 62 of the 2019 Act do not preclude the establishment of Delimitation Commission by the Central Government under sections 62 of the 2019 Act.”
“By virtue of Sections 60-61, while the power to determine delimitation is conferred on the Election Commission, Section 62(2) and 62(3) confers powers to carry out delimitation on the Delimitation Commission constituted under Section 3 of the Delimitation Act,” Mehta had explained.
