Supreme Court judgment on J&K delimitation today
Srinagar, February 12
The Supreme Court will deliver its verdict on the delimitation of Assembly and parliamentary constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir on Monday. Two Kashmir residents — Abdul Gani Khan and Muhammad Ayub Matto — had challenged the delimitation process, saying it went against the law which had put a freeze on delimitation in the country until 2026.
J&K is the only UT where boundaries of constituencies were redrawn on the basis of the population figures of the 2011 Census. In other states and UTs, it was done as per the 2001 Census and in future it is going to be carried out according to the 2031 Census.
The unique provision for the J&K was brought in by the BJP government through an amendment in the J&K Reorganization Act, 2019 which was passed by Parliament on August 6, 2019 to abrogate the special status of J&K and bifurcate it into two UTs — Ladakh and J&K.
As per 2011 Census, the population of Kashmir, Jammu and Ladakh is 68,88,475, 53,78,538 and 2,74,289, respectively, but the Delimitation Commission has increased seats in Jammu. On May 5, 2022, the Delimitation Commission ordered increasing six seats in Jammu, a BJP bastion, and only one in Kashmir, triggering a protest from the Kashmir-based political parties. The last delimitation in J&K came in 1995.
