SC refuses to entertain pleas seeking immediate implementation of Women Reservation Bill

New Delhi, Jan 10 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking the immediate implementation of the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam Bill 2023 which was passed in September 2023 in a special session of Parliament and mandated a 33 per cent reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and all state Assemblies, including Delhi.

A bench of Justices Bela M. Trivedi and P.B. Varale remarked that the petition failed to illustrate the violation of any fundamental rights, the sole ground to entertain a writ petition filed directly before the apex court under Article 32 of the Constitution.

The Justice Trivedi-led Bench added the petitioners may approach the jurisdictional high court to challenge the provision which made the conduct of census and subsequent delimitation as a prerequisite to implement the women reservation law.

The constitutional amendment introduced to implement the one-third women reservation does not intend to alter the composition of the present Lok Sabha or existing Legislative Assemblies, but will apply once they are freshly constituted on completion of their respective tenure or on being dissolved for any other cause.

It is speculated that the quota for women will be completely rolled out nationwide in 2029 post completion of delimitation exercise and will continue for a term of 15 years.

In January last year, the top refused to entertain a plea filed by an advocate seeking implementation of the Women Reservation Bill before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls on the basis of existing census data.

A bench presided over by Justice Sanjiv Khanna (now CJI) had asked the petitioner, Yogamaya M.G., to instead file an impleadment application in the pending batch of petitions raising the same issue.

The bench, also comprising Justice Dipankar Datta, had allowed the petitioner to withdraw her public interest litigation (PIL) saying that it did not want multiplicity of litigation in the matter.

In her plea, advocate Yogamaya M.G., prayed for directions mandating the urgent and time-bound implementation of the Constitution (One Hundred Twenty-Eighth Amendment) Bill on the basis of 2001 or 2011 census data under the provisions of Delimitation Commission Act, 2002 in the upcoming Lok Sabha Elections 2024. She had contended that "dependence on an indeterminable event, coupled with setbacks in the 2021 census, weakens the robustness of the statute's implementation".

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