Delimitation Plea: Supreme Court raps Centre for not filing response
Legality questioned
- Questioning the legality of the delimitation exercise, petitioners say altering boundaries and including extended areas can’t be done.
- They have urged the court to declare unconstitutional the March 2020 notification constituting the Delimitation Commission.
The Supreme Court (SC) has rapped the Centre for not filing its response on a petition challenging the delimitation exercise in Jammu and Kashmir even after being given six weeks for the same.
“You (Centre) don’t file affidavits in time. Even if I say one year, you’ll not file the affidavit in time,” said a Bench led by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul. Giving one week to the Centre to file its counter-affidavit, the Bench posted the matter for further hearing on September 29.
The top court had on May 13 asked the Centre, the J&K administration and the Election Commission to respond to a petition challenging the decision to appoint the Delimitation Commission, headed by Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai (retd), to redraw the Lok Sabha and the Assembly constituencies in the newly created Union Territory. The petitioners are Srinagar residents Haji Abdul Gani Khan and Mohammad Ayub Mattoo.
On Tuesday, the Bench said, “We note with great regret that despite six weeks’ time being granted to file counter affidavit…it has not seen the light of the day. We do not appreciate this and would have imposed a cost but for the fact that a young counsel appearing assures that it would be filed within a week. If not filed or submitted belatedly, it would be taken on record subject to depositing a Rs 25,000 cost.”
The petitioner’s counsel told the Bench that the Central government was supposed to file its response in six weeks from the last date of the hearing but it had not filed it even as it was proceeding with the election plan on the basis of the delimitation under challenge.
Questioning the legality of the delimitation exercise, the petitioners contended that alteration of boundaries and inclusion of extended areas could not be done.
As per the delimitation order, it is the Election Commission which was empowered to make changes.
They have urged the top court to declare unconstitutional the March 2020 notification constituting the Delimitation Commission under Section 3 of the Delimitation Act, 2002 for being “without power, jurisdictions and authority”.
