Delimitation: Supreme Court says status of Jammu and Kashmir completely different from north-eastern States

The position of north-eastern States of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland with respect to conduct of delimitation exercise cannot be compared to that of the newly-created Union Territory (UT) of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), the Supreme Court said on Monday [Haji Abdul Gani Khan and Anr. v. Union of India and ors]..The observation was made by a bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Abhay S Oka while dismissing a petition challenging the notifications for the delimitation of assembly constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir. The Court while noting that Section 10A of the 2002 Delimitation Act allows postponement of the exercise of delimitation in certain contingencies, stated,"The position and the status of the newly created Union Territory of J&K under the Constitution is completely different from the four north-eastern States. In its applicability to the Union Territory of J & K, Sections 4 and 9 of the Delimitation Act, 2002 stand amended by requiring readjustment to be carried out on the basis of the census figures of 2011. In case of the North Eastern States, there is no such amendment. 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 Court in its ruling observed that it has not ruled upon the validity of the Jammu & Kashmir Re-organisation Act, 2019 which is pending before the top court in the batch of petitions challenging abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution.Further, it was also held, among other things, that:- The failure of the legislature to modify the time limit provided in sub-section (6) of Section 10 of the 2002 Delimitation Act does not mean that the Central government is powerless to appoint a Delimitation Commission for J&K;- Delimitation as was carried out in Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh through reorganisation acts, has no bearing on J&K as the act for the UT has no pari materia provisions with those of two StatesThe ruling came on a petition was filed by two Srinagar residents, Haji Abdul Gani Khan and Dr Mohammad Ayub Mattoo, challenging the increase in the number of seats from 107 to 114 in the UT claiming that the same was ultra vires Articles 81, 82, 170, 330 and 332 of the Indian Constitution and Section 63 of the Jammu & Kashmir Re-organisation Act, 2019.It was contended that the respondents had no power to establish a Delimitation Commission under Section 3 of the Delimitation Act since only the Election Commission could carry out the process of delimitation after the notification of the Parliamentary and Assembly Constituencies Delimitation Order, 2008.The plea pointed out that Article 170 of the Constitution provides the next delimitation to be taken up after 2026, however, the Union Territory of J&K was singled out.The bench had on December 1 reserved judgment in the matter. The top court is also currently seized of pleas challenging the exclusion of the 4 northeastern States from the delimitation exercise in the UT. Soon after notices were issued in the same, the Election Commission of India recently announced the initiation of the delimitation process for Assam.The latter has also been challenged before the top court and is still pending. .Kashmir has always been a part of India: Supreme Court.[Read Judgment]