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Wednesday, Aug 15, 2007
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Supreme Court pulls up EC

Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has pulled up the Election Commission for increasing the seats of the Scheduled Tribes in the 70-member Uttarakhand Assembly from two to three in violation of the provisions of Article 332 (3) of the Constitution (reservation of seats for SC/STs in State Assemblies).

“The mandate of the Constitution is supreme and the Election Commission has no scope to go beyond the Constitution,” said a Bench of Justice A.K. Mathur and Justice Markandey Katju.

The Bench said: “It should be made clear that the mandate of Article 332 (3) of the Constitution should always be kept in mind. Article 332 (3) mandates that the reservation must be made in proportion to the population of the SCs and STs of the State. This should be the paramount consideration of the Election Commission and not any other consideration.”

Case in question

In the instant case, Anand Singh Kunwar and others filed a writ petition in the Uttarakhand High Court challenging the Commission’s notification increasing the ST seats from two to three. It was argued that three per cent of 70 seats worked out to 2.1 and instead of fixing the ST seats to two, the Commission increased it to three seats. The petition was transferred to the apex court at the instance of the Union of India.

In its counter, the Commission said that the order of delimitation dated November 5, 2000 was passed by the Election Commission keeping in view the special requirements of the development of tribal areas, particularly in the areas adjoining the international border with the two neighbouring countries and the aspirations of the local people to be part of the mainstream process. There was a strong demand for the increase for representation of tribals from the associate members and from the public. The Commission said that it had rectified the mistake and in the delimitation order dated December 28, 2006, only two seats had been reserved for STs.

Disposing of the petition, the Bench said: “Though now the issue is purely academic because the Election Commission having realised its mistake has reduced the number of seats of STs from three to two and the notification to this effect has already been issued, in order to justify the order dated November 5, 2001, the Election Commission has made certain observations which need not be repeated again.”

It said: “Now that the 2007 elections have already taken place, we are not disturbing the elections on this ground but in future STs’ vacancy should be treated as two only. We hope and trust that when any notification is issued, the Election Commission shall confine itself to the mandate of the provisions of the Constitution and will not be swayed by any other consideration.”

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