DELIMITATION EXERCISE - POLITY
News: Election
Commission to begin delimitation exercise in Assam
What's in the news?
● The
delimitation was carried out following a request from the Ministry of Law and
Justice in November to begin the delimitation exercise of Assembly and
parliamentary constituencies in Assam.
● The
census figures of 2001 would be used
for the delimitation process.
Key takeaways:
● As
mandated under Article 170 of the
Constitution, census figures of 2001 shall be used for the purpose of
readjustment of parliamentary and Assembly constituencies in the State.
● Reservation of seats
for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes will be provided as per Articles 330 and 332 of the
Constitution of India.
● The
last delimitation of constituencies in Assam was done on the basis of census
figures of 1971 by the then Delimitation Commission in 1976.
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.
● The
Delimitation Commission in India is a high power body whose orders have the force
of law and cannot be called in question before any court.
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 50 crore,
which in 50 years has grown to 130 crore, causing a massive asymmetry in the
political representation in the country.