Lucknow: A Lucknow bench of Allahabad high court has dismissed a writ petition challenging the delimitation of Assembly constituencies in Ambedkar Nagar district and the reservation of Alapur seat for Scheduled Castes, holding that the challenge was highly belated and failed to establish any violation of constitutional provisions.A bench of Justice Shekhar B Saraf and Justice Abdhesh Kumar Chaudhary observed that the delimitation order, published on Dec 5, 2006, had acquired the force of law and could not be reopened merely because a petitioner arrived at a different conclusion through his own calculations of population and caste demographics. The order came on the petition filed by Dileep Kumar, a resident and elector of Ambedkar Nagar district.The petitioner contended that the population distribution among the five constituencies — Katehari, Tanda, Alapur, Jalalpur and Akbarpur — was unequal and violated Article 170(2) of the Constitution. He argued that the delimitation exercise had resulted in an imbalance, with Jalalpur having a population of 4,60,245 against Akbarpur’s 3,68,722. He further claimed that the allocation of territorial areas had adversely affected the reservation status of Alapur, arguing that its Scheduled Caste population percentage did not justify its continued classification as a reserved constituency.Rejecting the arguments, the bench said Article 170(2) requires population-seat parity only “so far as practicable”, leaving the delimitation commission latitude to consider geographical contiguity, administrative boundaries and other relevant factors. It added that the commission’s internal guidelines permitting a deviation of up to 10% from the average population were not statutory mandates enforceable as an absolute right.The court also held that judicial review of delimitation orders was confined to narrow grounds, including lack of legislative competence and violation of fundamental rights or other constitutional provisions. The petitioner had failed to establish either ground.It further observed that nearly two decades had elapsed since the impugned order, during which successive Assembly elections had been conducted on its basis. Reopening the arrangement at this stage would be inequitable, particularly when the 2026 census was approaching completion and fresh delimitation could follow.
