HC quashes Haryana move to reduce SC seats in Panchkula MC

Chandigarh: In a significant development, the Punjab and Haryana high court has set aside a Haryana govt notification that reduced the number of seats reserved for Scheduled Castes (SC) in the Panchkula municipal corporation (MC).A division bench comprising Justice Anoop Chitkara and Justice Sukhvinder Kaur held that the reduction of SC reserved seats from four to three was unconstitutional, as it was not based solely on the 2011 Census data, as mandated under Articles 243P(g) and 243T of the Constitution.According to the bench, on one hand, the state is referring to Family Information Data Repository (FIDR) for fixation of total number of seats, which remained unchanged as was in the previous Census of 2011, on the other they are referring only to the 2011 Census when it comes to determining the population of the Scheduled Castes, and for the purpose of reduction in seats. "It means that the total number of voters belonging to the Scheduled Castes will be on FIDR, but their reservation will be based on the 2011 Census. On its face, the entire process adopted by the govt is contrary to the spirit of Article 243T of the Constitution," the HC has held.The bench passed these orders while allowing a petition filed by Usha Rani and others. The petitioners had challenged the Sept 4, 2025 notification reducing the seats reserved for candidates belonging to the SC category, from four in the last elections to three in the ensuing elections for the Panchkula municipal corporation, in violation of Art 243P(g) and 243T of the Constitution of India and Section 6 of The Haryana Municipal Corporation Act.The petitioners' case is that such a change was made during the on-the-spot population survey conducted on the FIDR and not based on the last Census of 2011. The petitioners' claim was that the FIDR was a voluntary scheme to obtain various benefits under government welfare schemes, and that it could not have replaced the Census, which is a product of Articles 243P(g) and 243T of the Constitution of India and is mandatory before any election process.After hearing all the parties, the HC held that the seats could have been re-distributed only on the basis of census of 2011 by counting the population as per 2011 census.The court also made it clear that the Haryana Parivar Pehchan Act 2021 could not have been considered at all for the purposes of determining the population of the people belonging to the SC and it had to be done strictly following the mandate of Articles 243P(g) and 243T of the Constitution.