Women largest minority, says Supreme Court; to hear plea for immediate quota

NEW DELHI: Observing that 33% reservation for women in legislative bodies is meant to bring social, economic and political justice for "the largest minority of the country" that is women, Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a plea seeking immediate implementation of quota for women in Lok Sabha and state assemblies, instead of waiting for delimitation after the next census as required by the 106th Constitutional Amendment Act.

Though a bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and R Mahadevan expressed its reluctance to entertain the petition, it finally agreed to examine it after senior advocate Shobha Gupta pleaded that the court should ask the Centre to brief when it intended to conduct census and thereafter delimitation exercise.

Gupta submitted that the constitutional amendment cannot be put on hold for an indefinite period.

"The constitutional amendment cannot be put on hold for an uncertain period. In fact, a special session of Parliament was called for implementing the reservation in Parliament as well as in the state legislatures, and both houses passed this bill unanimously and honourable President of India also gave assent and thereafter Act was notified on Sept 28, 2023. But it is not being implemented. There is no reason to wait for the delimitation process and the reservation can be done for women by rotating the reserved seats," Gupta said.

Hailing the constitutional amendment, Justice Nagaathna said that women constituted the largest minority in the country and it would bring justice to them.

The judge also highlighted that women's representation in legislative bodies was decreasing and raised questions on why the political parties were not giving tickets to women candidates.

The court was hearing a plea filed by a Congress memmer from Madhya Pradesh, Jaya Thakur.

Supreme Court to seek government clarity on census, delimitation process
The bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and R Mahadevan said that it could not ask the Centre to implement the law (immediate implementation of 33% reservation for women in Lok Sabha and state assemblies) as it was in the domain of govt but agreed to issue notice to Centre to know when the process of census and delimitation would be done to pave the way for implementation of the law.

The petition filed by advocate Varun Thakur said that several constitutional amendments on reservations were implemented immediately without being tied to the completion of any census or delimitation exercise and the same should be applied for women's reservation.

It said that the hindrance defeats the objective of ensuring adequate representation of women in the democratic process as women held only 4% of seats in legislative bodies while their population is nearly 50%.


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