{"id":35989,"date":"2023-06-21T10:26:24","date_gmt":"2023-06-21T04:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=35989"},"modified":"2025-04-21T14:07:20","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T08:37:20","slug":"constitutional-provisions-regarding-delimitation-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/constitutional-provisions-regarding-delimitation-in-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Constitutional Provisions Regarding Delimitation in India"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why in news?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What is Delimitation?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Why is it needed?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What are the Constitutional Provisions regarding delimitation in India?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What is Delimitation Commission?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why in news?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Election Commission has released the draft delimitation papers for Assam.\n<ul>\n<li>In December 2022, the Election Commission began the delimitation of Assembly and Parliamentary constituencies in Assam by using the Census data of 2001 for the readjustment seats.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>It has proposed to retain the number of Assembly seats in Assam at 126 and the Lok Sabha constituencies at 14.<\/li>\n<li>It has also proposed that the assembly seats reserved for Scheduled Castes be increased from eight to nine and Scheduled Tribe seats from 16 to 19.\n<ul>\n<li>The draft of delimitation further proposes to reserve two parliamentary seats for STs, and one parliamentary seat for SCs.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is Delimitation?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>According to the Election Commission, the word \u2018delimitation\u2019 is defined as \u201c<strong>the act or process of fixing limits\/boundaries of territorial constituencies in a country or a province having a legislative body<\/strong>\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>In the Indian context, the exercise of redrawing the boundaries of Lok Sabha and Legislative Assembly Constituencies in a region is known as delimitation.<\/li>\n<li>In this process, the number of seats allocated to a particular state\/UT in Lok Sabha or in the Legislative Assembly may vary.\n<ul>\n<li><strong>For example<\/strong> \u2013 Delhi, a union territory with legislative assembly, has 7 Lok Sabha constituencies while in the Legislative Assembly it has 70 constituencies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why is it needed?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Delimitation helps in redrawing the boundaries (based on the data of the last Census) in such a way that the <u>population of all the constituencies, as far as practicable, remain equal throughout the State\/UT<\/u>.<\/li>\n<li>It ensures a fair division of geographical areas so that all political parties or candidates contesting elections<strong> have a level playing field in terms of a number of voters<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What are the Constitutional Provisions regarding delimitation in India?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Article 82<\/strong> and <strong>Article 170 <\/strong>of the Constitution empowers the Parliament to readjust the allocation of seats in the Lok Sabha and the Legislative Assemblies of States respectively, after every census.<\/li>\n<li>Accordingly, the Parliament enacts a <u>Delimitation Commission Act<\/u> and an independent high-powered panel known as the <strong>Delimitation Commission<\/strong> is constituted to carry out the exercise of delimitation.<\/li>\n<li>The Parliament has enacted the Delimitation Commission Acts in <strong>1952<\/strong>, <strong>1962<\/strong>, <strong>1972<\/strong> and <strong>2002<\/strong> for this purpose.\n<ul>\n<li>There was no Delimitation Commission Act after the 1981 and 1991 census.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The present delimitation of constituencies has been done on the basis of 2001 census data under the provisions of <strong>Delimitation Commission Act, 2002<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><u>The next Delimitation Commission will be set up after 2026.<\/u><\/li>\n<li>Further, <strong>Article 330<\/strong> and <strong>Article 332<\/strong> of the Constitution provide for re-fixing the number of seats reserved for <strong>Scheduled Castes (SCs)<\/strong> and <strong>Scheduled Tribes (STs)<\/strong> in the Lok Sabha and the Legislative Assemblies of the states, on the basis of the 2001 census.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is Delimitation Commission?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Delimitation Commission is a high-powered committee entrusted with the task of drawing and redrawing of boundaries of different constituencies for state assembly and Lok Sabha election.<\/li>\n<li>It is <u>appointed by the President<\/u> and works in collaboration with the Election Commission.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Commission consists of \u2013<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>A retired or working Supreme Court Judge (chairperson)<\/li>\n<li>Election Commissioner<\/li>\n<li>Concerned State Election Commissioners<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The Commission\u2019s orders have the force of law and <strong>cannot be called in question before any court<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The Commission\u2019s orders are laid before the Lok Sabha and the legislative assemblies concerned, <u>but they cannot effect any modifications in the orders<\/u>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1)\u00a0Who appoints Delimitation Commission in India?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>In India, the Delimitation Commission is appointed by the President of India. The Delimitation Commission is responsible for the delimitation or re-drawing of electoral boundaries for both parliamentary and state assembly constituencies. It determines the boundaries of these constituencies based on the principles of population and territorial distribution.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2)<\/strong> <strong>Is Delimitation Commission a constitutional body?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Delimitation Commission is a statutory body established by the Parliament under Delimitation Commission Act.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/north-east-india\/assam\/ec-assam-delimitation-proposal-lok-sabha-seats-8675572\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>EC releases Assam delimitation proposals; no change in number of Lok Sabha, assembly seats<\/u><\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/other-states\/ec-releases-assam-delimitation-proposals-no-change-in-number-of-lok-sabha-assembly-seats\/article66990228.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>The Hindu<\/u><\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Delimitation is the act of fixing limits\/boundaries of territorial constituencies in a country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":35990,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-35989","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}