DELIMITATION COMMISSION - POLITY
News:
SC upholds the constitution of the J&K Delimitation Commission, extension
of tenure of its chairperson
What's in the news?
● The
Supreme Court dismissed a challenge to the constitution of the Jammu and
Kashmir Delimitation Commission to readjust constituencies in the new Union
Territory.
Key takeaways:
● Articles 2 and 3
of the Constitution enable the Parliament to create new States and Union
territories.
● Accordingly,
the two new Union territories have been created. The J&K Reorganization Act
which created the two new Union territories assigns the role of readjustment of
constituencies to the Delimitation Commission under the Delimitation Act, 2002.
● A
law made under Article 3 can always
provide for readjustment of the Constituencies in the newly constituted States
or Union territories through the Delimitation Commission.
What is Delimitation?
● Delimitation
is the redrawing of boundaries of an assembly or Lok Sabha constituency to
reflect changes in the population of a region.
Constitutional Provisions:
● The
Parliament enacts a Delimitation Act under Article
82 of the Constitution and an independent high-powered panel known as the
Delimitation Commission.
● Article 170
provides for the States to get divided into territorial constituencies as per
the Delimitation Act after every Census.
● The
Delimitation Commission is appointed by
the President of India and works in collaboration with the Election Commission
of India.
Composition:
● Retired
Supreme Court judge
● Chief
Election Commissioner
● Respective
State Election Commissioners
● Associate
members such as Members of Parliament and Legislative Assemblies of states for
which the Delimitation Commission is set up, are nominated as associate members
to help the commission in its task.
Powers of Delimitation Commission:
● The Delimitation
Commission is a high power body whose orders have the force of law and cannot
be called in question before any court.
Functions:
● To
determine the number and boundaries of constituencies to make the population of
all constituencies nearly equal.
● To
identify seats reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, wherever
their population is relatively large.
● Delimitation
Commissions have been set up four times - 1952, 1963, 1973 and 2002 under the
Acts of 1952, 1962, 1972 and 2002.
Freeze on Delimitation:
● Article 81
of the Indian constitution mandates that the population-to-seats ratio should
be the same for all states.
● The
Indian Constitution has specified the maximum strength of members of the Lok Sabha
to be 552.
● Although
unintended, this provision implied that states that took measures to ensure
population control would end up having a lesser number of seats in the
Parliament.
● The
southern states that promoted family planning faced the possibility of having
their seats reduced.
● To
address this issue, the Constitution was amended during the Emergency to
suspend delimitation until 2001 through the Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976.
84th Constitutional Amendment:
● The
84th Amendment to the Constitution in 2002 had put a freeze on the delimitation
of Lok Sabha and State Assembly constituencies till the first Census after 2026.
● The
current boundaries were drawn on the basis of the 2001 Census, the number of
Lok Sabha seats and State Assembly seats remained frozen on the basis of the
1971 Census.
● The
population according to the last census preceding the freeze was 50crore, which
in 50 years has grown to 130 crore, causing a massive asymmetry in the
political representation in the country.
Jammu & Kashmir Delimitation:
Constituencies redraw:
Delimitation
Commission has recommended seven additional constituencies such as
● 6
for Jammu
● 1
for Kashmir
● Jammu
Division will now have 43 seats compared to 37 earlier
● While
Kashmir Valley will have 47 seats compared to 46 earlier.
Lok Sabha Seats:
● Reorganization
of the Parliamentary constituencies so that 5 Lok Sabha seats constitute 18
Assembly constituencies each, taking the total number of assembly
constituencies to 90.
● Reserving
9 Assembly seats for Scheduled Tribes, 6 in Jammu while 3 in Kashmir.
● Doing
away with regional distinction between Jammu and Kashmir and treating it as
one. The Anantnag region in Kashmir has been combined with Rajouri and Poonch
in Jammu to carve out Anantnag-Rajouri as one Parliamentary constituency.
Kashmiri Migrants:
● The
Commission has recommended provision of at
least two members from the community of Kashmiri Migrants (Kashmiri Hindus)
in the Legislative Assembly.
● It
has also recommended that the Centre should consider giving representation in
the J&K Legislative Assembly to the displaced persons from
Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, who migrated to Jammu after Partition.
Schedule Tribes:
● The
Commission has reserved nine Assembly
seats for Scheduled Tribes.
● Six
of these are in the redrawn Anantnag parliamentary seat, including in Poonch
and Rajouri, which has the highest ST population.