VERDICT RESERVED
The top court reserved its verdict on a plea challenging Centre’s decision to constitute a delimitation commission
WHAT THE GOVT TOLD THE APEX COURT
WHY THE EXERCISE COULDN’T WAIT
The delimitation exercise could not wait till 2026 since the idea was to give immediate democracy, the govt told the Supreme Court “The last delimitation had taken place in 1995. We don’t want to point out what went wrong at that time... But the government’s idea was to give immediate democracy to J&K. To wait till 2026 was legislatively found to be unwise.”
WHY IT WAS NOT DONE BY EC
Centre said under the 2019 J&K Reorganisation Act, read with 2002 Delimitation Act, the first delimitation is to be done by a delimitation panel “The intention is that first delimitation is not by the Election Commission which is busy holding elections throughout the country. The first delimitation is to be done by the delimitation commission and then it can be done by EC.”