The Supreme Court on Monday sought the Union government’s response on a public interest litigation (PIL) challenging the delay in implementing the 33% reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies under the 2023 constitutional amendment.
A bench of Justices B.V. Nagarathna and R. Mahadevan issued notice to the Centre on a petition filed by Congress leader Jaya Thakur, who contended that the implementation of the women’s reservation should not be made contingent upon a future delimitation exercise.
While acknowledging the constitutional mandate for women’s representation, the bench clarified that the judiciary cannot compel Parliament or the executive to enforce a law. “Enforcement of a law is in the domain of the Parliament and the executive. We cannot issue a mandamus in that regard. But we can ask them to tell this court when they propose to have it [delimitation],” the bench observed.
During the hearing, the judges remarked that women constitute “the largest minority” in India. “Almost 48.4 percent of the total population is women. Even without the reservation, why can’t women be granted tickets? Women’s representation in Parliament is coming down. Forget 33%, it is less than 10%,” Justice Nagarathna noted.
Currently, there are 75 women members in the 543-member Lok Sabha and 42 in the 250-member Rajya Sabha.
In her petition, Thakur argued that postponing implementation of the quota until the completion of delimitation defeats the purpose of the constitutional amendment. The 2023 law provides that the one-third reservation will take effect only after the first delimitation exercise based on the next census.
Senior advocate Shobha Gupta, appearing for Thakur, told the court that the linkage between reservation and delimitation was unnecessary. “The first women’s reservation bill was brought in Parliament in 1987. Why delay something that has already taken so long? There is no connection between giving the reservation and undertaking a delimitation exercise,” she said.
The plea pointed out that similar reservations for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in Parliament and assemblies were extended periodically without awaiting fresh census or delimitation data. “By putting the clog, it is defeating the aims and objects of women’s representation in the democratic process,” it added.
Calling the constitutional amendment a measure of “political justice for women,” the bench observed that the government may wish to wait for accurate data and restructured constituencies before implementing the quota. “Maybe they want to know which are the constituencies to be reserved and how it is to happen. They also want to increase the number of seats in the Parliament, and so they want to have scientific data,” Justice Nagarathna said, recalling that the law was passed during a special session of Parliament.
The bench agreed to examine the matter and allowed the petitioner to serve a copy of the plea to the Centre. However, it did not fix a date for the next hearing.
The Constitution (106th Amendment) Act, 2023, passed unanimously in a special Parliament session, mandates one-third reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies. However, the amendment specifies that the quota will come into force only after a fresh census and subsequent delimitation, raising concerns that its implementation could be delayed indefinitely.
