Supreme Court says it cannot interfere in criteria for SC/ST reserved constituencies

Refusing to blur the constitutional 'Lakshman Rekha' that separates the three organs of governance, Supreme Court Wednesday said it cannot usurp legislature's exclusive powers to interfere in the criteria for reserving an assembly or parliamentary constituency for Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes. "We cannot become the third chamber of Parliament," a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana said while refusing to entertain a petition seeking quashing of a notification reserving Kadipur assembly constituency in UP for SCs. The CJI-led bench said identification of constituencies to reserve them for SCs or STs was the sole prerogative of the legislature and the court could not interfere in it, and suggested the petitioner could resort to protests to make elected representatives take corrective measures. The bench, which has been dealing with a large number of petitions on CJP protests, said in a lighter vein, "It is a good season for protest, dharna and 'naare baji'. You can also raise your voice (in protest) and tell the elected representatives that time is ripe for revising the criteria of reserving constituencies for the SC community and adopt the principle of rotational reservation. By approaching the constitutional court, you have dialled a wrong number." Appearing for a petitioner, senior advocate Gagan Gupta questioned the manner in which constituencies were geographically identified and reserved for SCs and asked whether "Section 9(1)(c) of the Delimitation Act, 2002, can constitutionally operate in a manner which permits the same territorial constituencies to remain reserved for SCs over successive electoral cycles without any mechanism for periodic rotation". The bench said, "Delimitation is a legislative exercise and the guidelines for carrying out that exercise cannot be tweaked by the courts. Can the judiciary mandate the Delimitation Commission to adopt rotational reservation policy while demarcating constituencies for SCs?" The SC agreed with Allahabad HC, which had said that since Articles 330 and 332 provide for reserving constituencies for SCs and STs, no general candidate could claim that his right to contest from constituencies reserved for SCs and STs was violated.