SC gives 3 months to Centre for delimitation exercise in northeast

The Supreme Court on Monday granted three months to the Centre for carrying out the delimitation exercise in Arunachal Pradesh Nagaland Manipur and AssamA bench headed by Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna noted the request of Centres solicitor general Tushar Mehta who sought some more timeThe bench then deferred the hearing to July 21 and asked the Centre to do the needful within three monthsThe top court had previously raised concerns over the delay in carrying out the delimitation exercise in these states despite a 2020 presidential order rescinding the deferment of the processOnce the president rescinds the notification that is enough to proceed with the delimitation exercise Where does the government come in the bench asked as it told the Centres counsel to seek instructionsThe Centre said while consultations were underway for Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland the ongoing violence in Manipur made the situation unconduciveThe bench was hearing a plea filed by Delimitation Demand Committee for the State of Arunachal Pradesh Assam Manipur amp Nagaland in North East IndiaThe plea sought immediate implementation of the delimitation exercise in these statesAdvocate G Gangmei representing the petitioner had said the Presidents 2020 order made the exercise legally mandatoryHe said two years had passed since the writ petition was filed but no concrete steps were taken to initiate delimitation in Arunachal Pradesh Nagaland and ManipurAssam alone saw progress with delimitation completed in August 2023 following an order from the Ministry of Law and Justice Gangmei addedThe Election Commission of India maintained that specific directions from the Central government were required to begin delimitation under Section 8A of the Representation of the People Act 1950The petition cited the presidential order of February 28 2020 which allowed delimitation in the four northeastern states along with the Union Territory of Jammu and KashmirIt alleged selective denial of delimitation in these states claiming a violation of the fundamental right to equality under Article 14 of the ConstitutionThe plea highlighted that despite decades of elections being conducted peacefully in these states no delimitation took place since the amendment of the Delimitation Act in 2002The lack of action left the northeastern states at a disadvantage compared to the rest of the country it addedThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever