Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Wednesday told a petitioner seeking mandatory rotation of SC/ST constituencies to protest instead. The Supreme Court refused to entertain the plea, saying such policy changes fall under Parliament. "This is a season of dharna, protest. You should also do the same," he said.
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Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Wednesday told a petitioner seeking mandatory rotation of constituencies reserved for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) to take up the issue through protests, saying the Supreme Court cannot direct such a policy change.
"This is a season of dharna, protest. You should also do the same," the CJI remarked in a lighter vein during the hearing as a bench of the Supreme Court refused to entertain the plea.
The bench, comprising the CJI and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana, said decisions on rotating reserved constituencies fall within the domain of Parliament and cannot be directed by courts.
The petition challenged the absence of mandatory rotation of SC/ST-reserved constituencies in Parliament and state assemblies, arguing that the existing system violated the Constitution.
The petitioner, Jagdish Singh, an elector from the 191-Kadipur Assembly Constituency in Uttar Pradesh's Sultanpur district, challenged the continued reservation of the seat for Scheduled Castes. He claimed the constituency had remained reserved for nearly seven decades since its creation.
Singh argued that the absence of a rotation mechanism violated Articles 14, 15 and 19 of the Constitution and restricted voters' electoral choices by limiting the candidates they could elect to members of the SC community. He also claimed that the existing arrangement benefited a limited number of political families rather than the wider community.
The plea sought a mechanism similar to the rotational reservation system followed in panchayats and municipalities under Articles 243D and 243T of the Constitution.
The Supreme Court refused to interfere with the Allahabad High Court judgment upholding Section 9(1)(c) of the Delimitation Act, 2002. The provision deals with the identification of reserved constituencies in areas having a comparatively higher proportion of SC/ST population.
During the hearing, Justice Joymalya Bagchi said voters in a multiparty democracy were expected to make electoral choices based on political ideologies rather than caste or religion.
"In a political democracy, there are multiple political parties having different ideologies. The voters are expected to vote for the party, not for the religion. You may like or dislike a particular political ideology. Who is representing that ideology becomes irrelevant. You vote for that ideology. So that also defeats your argument," Justice Bagchi said.
The bench also distinguished between the right to vote and any claimed right to contest elections from a particular constituency, observing that candidates from the general category could contest elections from constituencies that were not reserved.
The CJI told the petitioner that he had approached the wrong forum for seeking a change in the policy and that the demand for rotation should instead be taken up with Parliament.
"You are dialling the wrong number. This is a season of dharna, protest, etc. You should also do the same," he quipped.
In its order, the bench said, "The challenge to Section 9(1)(c) of the Delimitation Act has been turned down in the impugned judgment. The case of the petitioner is that the Assembly seats should be reserved on a rotational basis for members of ST and SC communities as in municipal corporations.
"The High Court has turned down the case observing that although ideally rotation ought to be followed, such a recourse cannot be directed by the court and it is in the ambit of the Parliament. We see no ground to take a different view."
The Supreme Court, however, clarified that the petitioner was free to approach public representatives and persuade them to adopt the rotation principle.