SC dismisses plea challenging J&K's delimitation exercise

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea challenging the delimitation exercise carried out for redrawing the assembly and Lok Sabha constituencies in the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

Dismissing the plea, a division bench of justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and AS Oka said it has not ruled upon the validity of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, which is pending adjudication in the apex court.

The bench clarified that the dismissal of the plea should not be misconstrued as giving imprimatur to the decisions taken in relation to Article 370. The said issue is pending before a constitution bench in a clutch of pleas challenging abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution.


The bench held that the position and status of J&K under the Constitution is different from the four northeastern states. "Therefore, two unequal cannot be treated as equals. Hence, the argument based on the violation of constitutional provisions including Article 14 deserves to be rejected," the judgment reads.

The petitioners had contended that the delimitation exercise was in violation of the scheme of the Constitution of India, especially Article 170(3), which had frozen delimitation till the first census after 2026.

Petitioners Haji Abdul Gani Khan and Mohammad Ayub Mattoo had contended that the delimitation notification, which directed the process to be carried out in J&K on the basis of 2011 population census was unconstitutional as no population census operation was carried out in 2011 for J&K.

The Centre and the Election Commission had defended the process. The Centre, in its affidavit, had submitted that the pleas were nothing but a frivolous attempt to challenge the orders of the delimitation commission. The EC had submitted that there was a bar on judicial interference regarding the validity of any law pertaining to delimitation of constituencies.