Supreme Court refuses to entertain pleas challenging 33% reservation to women

Supreme Court refuses to entertain pleas challenging 33% reservation to women

Supreme Court refuses to entertain pleas challenging 33% reservation to women ByAbraham Thomas Jan 10, 2025 04:09 PM IST Share Via Copy Link The ‘Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam’ got the President’s assent on September 28, 2023 after a special session of the Parliament was called to pass the law.

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain petitions challenging the law providing 33% reservation to women, stating that the petitioners are free to approach the high court to contest the validity of the provision.

Supreme Court of India. (PTI Photo)

The top court made the observations while hearing petitions filed by Congress leader Jaya Thakur and non-profit National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW) against the bill preceding the Constitution (106th Amendment) Act, 2023, which introduced 33% reservation for women in Parliament and state assemblies.

The twin pleas sought striking down of a specific provision which made conduct of census and subsequent delimitation as a prerequisite to implement the reservation as they argued for its immediate roll-out.

“We are not inclined to interfere under Article 32,” the bench headed by justice Bela M Trivedi said. The said provision in the Constitution allows citizens to approach the Supreme Court for enforcement of their fundamental rights.

“Tell us what is the fundamental right that is being affected,” the bench, also comprising justice PB Varale, said.

The ‘Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam’ got the President’s assent on September 28, 2023 after a special session of the Parliament was called to pass the law, and the historic proceeding took place in the new Parliament building on September 19 that year.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for NFIW, said that the issue is of equality as reservation for women cannot be dependent on carrying out delimitation exercise.

“What does delimitation have to do with granting reservation? This is a violation of Article 14 (right to equality) of the Constitution. We are challenging that part which makes implementation subject to delimitation,” Bhushan said.

The bench observed, “There is no violation of Article 14,” referring to the long history of legislative interventions to provide reservation for women in Parliament and Assemblies that failed to translate into law. “So far it was never brought into effect. Now it is implemented. If you find any unconstitutionality in it, you may challenge it in the high court,” the court added.

Representing the Centre, advocate Kanu Agarwal informed the bench that the timing of the implementation of the law is part of legislative policy, and no judicial review can lie in this regard. However, he slammed the petitioners for raising a challenging to a Constitution Amendment Act without pointing out how the basic structure of the Constitution is affected by this law. The bill on women reservation in Parliament and assemblies was introduced in 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2008 but it failed to fructify into a law.

Agarwal further said that the petition filed by Jaya Thakur has challenged the bill even though the bill became a law in September 2023 after it was passed by both Houses of Parliament.

Advocate Varun Thakur, appearing for the Congress leader, requested for time to file a response to the Centre’s affidavit.

“You have challenged it at the stage of bill and now it has become an Act.” The court dismissed Thakur’s petition as being “infructuous”, the bench pointed out. The court even disposed of the other petition as Bhushan said he will challenge the law before the high court.

Thakur’s petition presented figures of representation of women in assemblies across the state to show that only 4% women in the country get representation in elections. Terming this as an “emergent situation” the petition demanded the reservation law to be implemented immediately.

Thakur, who is the general secretary of Madhya Pradesh women wing of the Congress, also questioned why women reservation was subjected to census data when it was not done while introducing one-third reservation to women in local body polls in 1992.