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A bench headed by chief justice S A Bobde agreed to hear the petition seeking quashing of the order of 28 February of this year "rescinded" an earlier notice of 8 February 2008 which had delayed Assam's delimitation process.
Wednesday the Supreme Court sought responses from the Center and Assam government on a petition seeking to defer the delimitation of assembly and parliamentary constituencies in the state until Census 2021 was completed.
A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde agreed to hear the plea seeking quashing of this year's February 28 order that "rescinded" an earlier February 8, 2008 notification that had deferred Assam's delimitation process.
The bench, which also includes Justices A S Bopanna and Hrishikesh Roy, issued notices to the Centre, Assam government and delimitation commission and asked them to file their responses on the petition that challenged the 2001 Census-based delimitation process.
The petition, filed via advocate Fuzail Ahmad Ayyubi, sought guidance from the authorities to defer the delimitation process until the completion of Census 2021 "so that the most recent population statistics for this exercise are available."
"The decision to carry out the pending process of delimitation of assemblies and parliamentary constituencies is not merely an arbitrary and hasty decision, but is contrary to the very concept behind delimitation, having suggested that it be carried out not on the basis of population figures obtained from the most recent census, but rather on the basis of 2000 census stale figures," the plea said.
The petition, filed by two residents of Assam, argued that the present delimitation exercise was being sought on the basis of the 2001 census, despite the fact that the 2011 census had already been carried out.
It alleged that the order issued on 28 February this year could be quashed as it violates constitutional provisions relating to equality before law and the right to life and freedom of speech and expression.
It said the delimitation process had been deferred in the state earlier in light of the aggravated law and order situation in Assam.
The plea said that due to opposition to the Citizenship ( Amendment ) Act and apprehensions related to the publication of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, the situation had worsened to such an extent that the entire state was declared a "disturbed area" with effect from 28 August 2019, for a six month period.
The plea said "the very purpose of delimitation is to determine an equal number of electorate divisions in the different assemblies and parliamentary constituencies, and the same has historically been based on population estimates as obtained from the most recent census."
It said NRC planning was one of the reasons for earlier deferment of delimitation process in Assam.
"While the results of the NRC were published on 31 August 2019 by the State Coordinator, NRC, Assam, the process for more than 19 lakh persons, excluded from it, is underway," he said, adding that it would be more realistic to defer the present delimitation process until the finalization of the NRC and the 2021 census.
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