Why No Delimitation Held In North-Eastern States? Supreme Court Asks Centre, ECI

During the hearing, Advocate G Gangmei told a Bench of Justices KM Joseph and Hrishikesh Roy that the urgency in the matter was owing to the fact that elections are coming up in the four states.

"In Manipur it is over, Nagaland, it is coming up. We will have to wait years for the implementation."

The Bench then asked the ECI counsel why the though the North eastern states were removed from the notification for the Delimitation process.

"There are many tribes there, so it's sensitive", the counsel appearing for the ECI said.

"What does that mean? There have been polls every five years. Are you acting on someone's behest, the Central Government?", the Bench asked.

"No, we go by the notification issued by the President. We only carry out the process", the counsel said.

The Advocate for the State of Nagaland in a connected matter submitted that, "They again imposed AFSPA (Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958) and declared Nagaland disturbed. They conduct polls saying there is improvement. Nothing meaningful can take place right now."

Hearing the submissions, the bench asked, "But how long? It has been 70 years now. For how long in northeast can you keep saying ..."

The matter will be next heard in the second week of February. The Court also granted liberty to the respective parties to file counter and rejoinder statements.

The petition filed in this regard stated that selectively denying delimitation while the same exercise was being conducted in the rest of India violated the fundamental right under article 14 of the Constitution.

The petition further stated that,

"It has been already two decades since the Delimitation Act, 2002 was amended and no delimitation exercises have been conducted in the four North-eastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur and Nagaland nor under Section 8A of the Representation of Peoples Act in the name of law-and-order problems.

However, the plea said, since 2002 various parliamentary and state assembly elections have been conducted successfully in these four North Eastern states without any issue of law-and-order problems.

"In all fairness these four North- eastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur and Nagaland deserved equal treatment per-se with rest of India and delimitation exercise ought be conducted at the earliest either by constituting a commission under the Delimitation Act, 2002 or through the Election Commission under Section 8A of Representation of Peoples Act as there are no justifiable reason that exist for not conducting delimitation."

Case Title: Delimitation Demand Committee for the State of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur & Nagaland in North East India v Union of India| Diary No 12880 of 2022