New Delhi
The Supreme Court on Friday refused to hear petitions challenging the 33% women’s reservation law. The court termed as frivolous the petition which challenged the Bill and not the Act. In the second petition, a demand was made to find other solutions including approaching the High Court regarding this matter, which was rejected. The SC bench said that earlier also the issue of 33% reservation for women was raised in Parliament and state assemblies, but it could never be implemented. However, this time it is being implemented on the condition of completion of the delimitation process.
What is the Women’s Reservation Act?
The Women’s Reservation Act (Nari Shakti Vandan Act-2023) reserves one-third seats for women in the Lok Sabha, state assemblies and the Delhi Assembly. This rule will also apply to seats reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. This means that out of 543 seats in the Lok Sabha, 181 seats will be reserved for women.
However, seats will not be reserved for women in the assemblies of Union Territories like Puducherry. It is known that this reservation will be implemented after the release of census data. Seats will be reserved for women on the basis of census for which delimitation will be done. This reservation will be available for a period of 15 years.
At present, 131 seats in the Lok Sabha have been reserved for SC-ST. After the implementation of the Women’s Reservation Act, 43 of these seats will be reserved for women. These 43 seats will be considered as part of the total seats reserved for women in the House. This means that out of 181 seats reserved for women, there will be 138 on which there will be female candidates from any caste. It is clear that the candidates for these seats cannot be male. It should be noted that this calculation has been done on the current number of seats in the Lok Sabha. This may change after delimitation.
