New Delhi: Former advisor to the Election Commission of India (ECI) and delimitation expert S.K. Mendiratta has written to the Commission citing legal loopholes in the Centre’s move to carry out the delimitation exercise in four north-eastern states.As per an Indian Express report, Mendiratta, who served for about 50 years as a legal advisor to the ECI, had cited in his correspondence to the three election commissioners that the Centre would spend a huge amount of public money in an exercise that would stand no legal scrutiny under Section 8 of the Representation of People Act, 1950.In February, the Narendra Modi government rescinded a 2008 presidential order which had stalled the exercise by the Delimitation Commission in Assam, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur. The Modi government’s move was to pave way for delimitation of assembly and parliamentary constituencies of these states based on the 2001 Census. In March, the Delimitation Commission of 2002 was reconstituted to not only redraw constituencies in proportion to the population in the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir as per the 2011 Census under the J&K Reorganisation Act 2019, but also in these NE states but with 2001 Census data under the Delimitation Act of 2002.The 2001 Census data sets were heavily contested, mainly in Manipur and Nagaland, citing inaccuracies, leading the Gauhati high court to ask for a recount in Manipur which has not been done yet. While the then Nagaland cabinet rejected the data, the then Assam government had opposed the delimitation exercise of 2008 too as the update of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) was yet to be completed in the state. Eventually, in a presidential order in 2008, the exercise was stalled in these states citing security reasons.Also read: Manipur Delimitation Raises Old Concerns Around Power Sharing and BJP’s AgendaImportantly, the former legal adviser to the EC, as per the news report, has red-flagged the Central move to the poll commission as “illegal” and “unconstitutional”, pointing out that the Union law ministry’s notification on March 6 giving the go-ahead to the delimitation exercise in these states was in violation of Section 8 of the Act that was introduced in Parliament in 2008.He pointed out that as per that section, whenever delimitation exercise was to be carried out in these states, it would fall within the remit of the ECI and not the Delimitation Commission.Mendiratta wrote in his letter that any delimitation exercise to be carried out in these states by the Delimitation Commission would be “declared void by the courts” and, subsequently, result in “wastage of huge precious public funds”.The report, quoting “sources”, said the letter was forwarded to the law ministry about two weeks ago. The reconstituted Delimitation Commissioner and former Supreme Court Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai confirmed to the newspaper that “she is aware” of the letter but didn’t comment on the issue.Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra, who represents the ECI at the Commission said that the letter “is being considered at the appropriate level”.Meanwhile, the Centre’s decision to go ahead with the delimitation exercise with the 2001 data sets has already created an uproar in various quarters in these states, ending in firming up of lines between various communities too in some.
