Delimitation exercise in north-eastern states can't be deferred indefinitely: SC

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday told the Union govt that it cannot indefinitely defer the delimitation exercise for redrawing boundaries of parliamentary and assembly constituencies in north-eastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland in violation of the mandate of Article 82 of the Constitution .

Article 82 mandates carrying out a delimitation exercise after conduct of each census. However, Parliament had amended the Article in 2001 to defer the readjustment of allocation of seats in Lok Sabha to states till after the census of 2031. However, it provided that the delimitation exercise of assembly constituencies would be based on the 2001 census.

A PIL filed in 2022 had alleged that no delimitation exercise has been conducted for the states of Assam, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh since 1971. The delimitation exercise for Assam was carried out in the recent past, but not for the other three NE states.

Appearing for the Union govt, additional solicitor general (ASG) K M Nataraj told a bench of Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar that the law and order situation in Manipur as well as strong opposition from several tribes in Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland for the delimitation exercise is under consideration.

The bench asked, "Can you defer the delimitation exercise indefinitely in breach of the mandate of the constitutional provision? We can understand the law and order situation in Manipur. What about Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland?" Ethnic violence has been continuing in Manipur since May last year.

Nataraj said there are serious objections from tribes of these states about the sudden suspicious increase in population in some districts, as per the 2001 census, and their assemblies have passed resolutions against taking the 2001 census data as the basis for the delimitation exercise. NE states in the last two decades have seen large-scale illegal migration from Bangladesh, which has impacted their demography.

The ASG said the matter is under active consideration of the govt. The bench asked the Union government to submit its response on carrying out delimitation exercises in the three NE states by the second week of January.

The petitioner organisation - 'Delimitation Demand Committee for Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur and Nagaland' - said the President in February 2008, during the UPA government, had indefinitely deferred the delimitation process for Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland. However, the deferment order was rescinded by the President in February 2020.

The Union government in March 2020 had constituted a delimitation commission under Justice (retired) Ranjana Desai for these four states as well as J&K. But a year later, the commission's work was limited only to J&K.

Later, Assam was taken up for delimitation exercise, and the Election Commission had published the final order for delimitation of parliamentary and assembly constituencies for Assam in August last year.