The stand of the top court gains significance with the Parliament scheduled to debate the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill and the Delimitation Bill in a special three-day session starting on Thursday.  | Photo Credit: SUBRAMANIUM S

The Supreme Court has said that delimitation exercise conducted prior to the post-2026 census data must not “destabilise the uniform electoral framework” envisaged by the Constitution and blur the clear demarcation between constitutional prescription and political discretion.

The court was dealing with a plea in the K Purushottam Reddy case for conduct of delimitation and re-adjustment of Legislative Assembly seats in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The petitioner had argued that by conducting delimitation of constituencies in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir in 2022, the Centre was discriminating against the two States. The plea had sought parity. The court highlighted that even “legitimate expectations” of the elctorate cannot overawe the clear constitutional embargo under the provisos to Articles 82 and 170 of the Constitution that “no readjustment of seats or division of States into territorial constituencies can be undertaken until the relevant data from the first census conducted after 2026 is published”. The court said isolated departures from the constitutional embargo for the sake of two States would amount to an impermissible deviation from the equality principle embedded in Article 14 of the Constitution.

Rejecting the plea for delimitation in breach of the constitutional bar, the apex court held that a “contravention of the constitutional timeline provided under Article 170(3) would not only destabilise the uniform electoral framework envisaged by the Constitution but also blur the clear demarcation between constitutional prescription and political discretion”.

The stand of the top court gains significance with the Parliament scheduled to debate the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill and the Delimitation Bill in a special three-day session starting on Thursday.

The proposed law intends to expand the Lok Sabha to 850 seats and revoke the third provisos of Article 82 and 170 to lift the freeze on seat allocation until the post-2026 census data is published. It has pushed for delimitation based on “population” determined as per “such census” determined by the Parliament. This would potentially mean the 2011 census figures. Southern States, especially those ruled by Opposition parties, which had faithfully complied with population control measures, fear that a delimitation in 2026 would lead to gerrymandering and political marginalisation. The government, on the other hand, has promised equitable distribution of seats across States. The Supreme Court has consistently held that though judicial review of delimitation was limited, the court could intervene if the exercise was capricious and unreasonable.

“Free and fair elections”

The court, in the 1975 case law of Indira Nehru Gandhi versus Raj Narain, said the Constitution empowered the Parliament with the important task of framing electoral laws for “free and fair elections”, which included within its ambit the laws on “delimitation of constituencies and allotment of seats to such constituencies” to the Parliament and the State legislatures under Articles 327 and 328.

The Constitution expected the legislature to ensure that these laws upheld representative and equitable democracy. On that trust, it had limited the power of the courts to judicially intervene and question the validity of these laws.

The 1975 judgment had observed that the laws made under Articles 327 and 328, though liable to be tested for violation of fundamental rights, cannot suffer judicial interference merely on the ground that they fell short of “some ideal notions of free and fair elections” or were opposed to the “spirit of democracy or republicanism supposed to pervade the Constitution but not expressed in words”.

The court’s reasoning is based on the mandate of Article 329 (bar to interference by courts in electoral matters) that “notwithstanding anything in this Constitution, the validity of any law relating to the delimitation of constituencies or the allotment of seats to such constituencies, made or purporting to be made under Article 327 and Article 328, shall not be called in question in any court”.

However, the court’s July 2024 decision in Kishorchandra Chhanganlal Rathod case versus Union of India has tilted away from the inviolability of the delimitation exercise. The court has held that it could certainly intervene if the delimitation was found to be “manifestly arbitrary and irreconcilable to constitutional values”. “While the courts shall always be guided by the settled principles regarding scope, ambit and limitations on the exercise of judicial review in delimitation matters, there is nothing that precludes them to check the validity of orders passed by Delimitation Commission on the touchstone of the Constitution. If the order is found to be manifestly arbitrary and irreconcilable to the constitutional values, the Court can grant the appropriate remedy to rectify the situation,” the Supreme Court has noted.

Published on April 16, 2026