On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled that the Representation of People's Act, 1950's delimitation process in the four North Eastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, and Nagaland is a "sensitive" matter.

In the course of the hearing, Attorney G. Gangmei informed a Bench of Justices KM Joseph and Hrishikesh Roy that the impending elections in the four states were the reason for the matter's urgency.

"In Manipur it is over, Nagaland, it is coming up. We will have to wait years for the implementation."

The Bench subsequently questioned the ECI counsel as to why the North Eastern States had not received a notification for the Delimitation process.

The next hearing on the subject is scheduled for the second week of February. The Court also gave the appropriate parties permission to submit rejoinder and counter statements.

According to the petition submitted in this regard, it was unlawful to selectively deny delimitation while the same procedure was taking place in the rest of India, in violation of article 14 of the Constitution's fundamental rights.

The petition further stated that, “It has been already two decades since the Delimitation Act, 2002 was amended and no delimitation exercises have been conducted in the four North-eastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur and Nagaland nor under Section 8A of the Representation of Peoples Act in the name of law-and-order problems.”

But according to the argument, these four North Eastern states have successfully held a number of parliamentary and state assembly elections since 2002 without encountering any issues with peace and order.

"In all fairness these four North- eastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur and Nagaland deserved equal treatment per-se with rest of India and delimitation exercise ought be conducted at the earliest either by constituting a commission under the Delimitation Act, 2002 or through the Election Commission under Section 8A of Representation of Peoples Act as there are no justifiable reason that exist for not conducting delimitation."

Case Title: Delimitation Demand Committee for the State of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur & Nagaland in North East India v Union of India

Diary No: 12880 of 2022