Supreme Court Accepts PIL Filed By ‘Northeast Delimitation Demand Committee'

The Supreme Court of India has accepted a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by the Delimitation Demand Committee for the North Eastern states (DDCNE) – Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, and Manipur.

According to a press release released by the DDCNE, the apex court on July 25, 2022 issued a notice, seeking directive to conduct delimitation exercise within the four northeastern states, in accordance with the Representation of People’s Act, 1950.

A presidential order dated February 28, 2020 had allowed conducting the delimitation exercise within the four states and subsequently, the govt of India constituted a delimitation commission for the aim of delimitation of assembly and parliamentary constituencies within the Union Territory (UT) of Jammu and Kashmir and therefore the states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland.

The central government appointed retired Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai because the chairperson but the exercise was restricted only to Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).

Relying on the said order, DDCNE submitted a memorandum to the Prime Minister of India for the implementation of the Delimitation Act, 2002 in these four states in 2021 and 2022 but no response was received.

“It has been already 20 years since the Delimitation Act, 2002 was amended and no delimitation exercises are conducted within the four North-eastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur and Nagaland nor under Section 8A of the Representation of Peoples Act within the name of law-and-order problems,” – the statement further reads.

“Therefore, the people of the four NE states have exhausted all available remedies as all our petitions and memorandums to the authorities concerned have fallen on deaf ears. Our only available hope is now to play the door of the court to deliver justice to the people of those four NE states as all other government machineries have did not do so. Hence, the filing of PIL within the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India,” the statement concluded.