The Supreme Court on Friday ordered tagging of a petition with the original case related to the delimitation process in Assam. A three-member Bench headed by Chief Justice SA Bobde and comprising Justice AS Bopanna and Justice V Ramasubramanian ordered that the petition filed by Abdul Saleem Laskar should be tagged with Writ Petition (Civil) No.454/2020 that pertains to the ongoing case related to delimitation.
On November 2 last year, the Supreme Court had granted two weeks to the Centre, Assam government and others as a last chance to file their replies on a batch of pleas that raised the issues concerning delimitation of Assembly and Parliamentary constituencies in the state.
The bench headed by Chief Justice Bobde said that if the replies are not filed within two weeks, the apex court would proceed in the matter.
The counsel appearing for one of the petitioners told the bench that notice was issued earlier in the matter but no replies have been filed and the delimitation exercise was going on.
Some of the petitions in the apex court also raised the issue regarding the process of delimitation in Nagaland and Manipur.
One of the pleas, filed by two residents of Assam, claimed that the delimitation exercise in the state was sought to be conducted on the basis of the Census 2001 despite the fact that the Census 2011 has already been conducted.
It urged that delimitation of Assembly and Parliamentary constituencies in Assam be deferred until the completion of Census 2021, so that the most recent population figures are available for this exercise.
