New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday, February 13, dismissed a petition challenging the delimitation exercise in the Jammu and Kashmir Union Territory, which attempts to redraw boundaries of the legislative assembly and Lok Sabha constituencies in the area.On March 6, 2020, Union Ministry of Law and Justice (Legislative Department) had issued a notification in exercise of power under Section 3 of the Delimitation Act, 2002, constituting a Delimitation Commission, with retired Supreme Court judge Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai as the chairperson.Two petitioners, Haji Abdul Gani Khan and Mohammad Ayub Mattoo, had argued that the notification was unconstitutional and that the delimitation exercise was carried out in contravention of the scheme of the constitution.LiveLaw has reported that a bench of Justice S.K. Kaul and Justice A.S. Oka said that the dismissal of the petition should not be construed as giving approval to the decisions taken in relation to Article 370 as the latter is pending before a constitution bench of the apex court.Late last year, the Union government had told the Supreme Court that the delimitation commission formed to redraw the constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir was empowered to do so.The Union government had contended that the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, does not preclude the establishment of a delimitation commission by the Union government.Senior Advocate Ravi Shankar Jandhyala who represented the petitioners had contended that the exercise was in violation of the scheme of the constitution, especially Article 170(3), which had frozen delimitation till the first census after 2026, LiveLaw reported.Since the delimitation order was passed in 2008, all exercise related to delimitation could be carried out only by the Election Commission and not a delimitation commission, Jandhyala had argued.While reading out the operative portions of the order, a full copy of which is yet to be uploaded, Justice Oka said that the argument on the constitutional validity of the Jammu And Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, had not been in the challenging petition, although Jandhyala had orally argued on it.The petition had also challenged the consequential omission of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland from the process of delimitation, claiming that it amounts to classification and violates Article 14 (equality before law) of the constitution.The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) had earlier criticised the delimitation exercise in Jammu and Kashmir, prompting India to slam the grouping for its “unwarranted” comments and ask it to refrain from carrying out a “communal agenda” at the behest of one country, in an oblique reference to Pakistan.