eng
competition

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rakesh gautam

created Sep 11th 2014, 07:46 by RakeshKumarGautam


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The Counsel for the respondents also contended that the exclusive reservation in favour of Scheduled Tribes unfairly limits the scope of political participation for others and since all the offices of Chairpersons are reserved, there is no scope for rotation of seats as contemplated by the third proviso to Article 243-D(4) of the Constitution. It was also 2
 
 pointed out that in some of the Districts notified as Scheduled Areas, the Scheduled Tribes are not in a majority. First of all, it is to be remembered that the impugned reservation policy is applicable only to Scheduled Areas which were hitherto covered by the Fifth Schedule to the Constitution. We must make it abundantly clear that this pattern of reservation has been designed only for Scheduled Areas which merit such exceptional treatment. In the present case, it should be noted that the Scheduled Areas under consideration are restricted only to certain Districts in the State of Jharkhand. In some Districts where STs are not predominantly in occupation, only certain blocks have been notified as Scheduled Areas by themselves. On account of migration of non-tribal people in some areas, there may be a relatively lesser proportion of tribal population but historically these areas were occupied almost exclusively by Tribal people.
 
 
20. In the course of the proceedings, our attention was also drawn to a Constitution Bench decision reported as R.C Poudyal v. Union of India (1994) Supp. 1 SCC 324, wherein the majority had upheld the reservation of some seats in the favour of the Bhutia and Lepcha communities in the Sikkim Legislative Assembly. In that case the majority had held that even though legislative seats could not be ordinarily reserved on the basis of ethnic and religious identity, an exception could be made in this case on account of the particular historical factors that led to the integration of Sikkim with the Union of 2
 
 India. The judgment in that case does not directly aid the case of either side in the present litigation. However, the opinions delivered in that case did touch on the importance of the `one-man, one-vote' principle that should be followed in liberal democracies. While this principle entails that there should be parity between the weightage given to the votes cast by individuals, the same cannot be enforced to an absolute standard. This is because territorial constituencies are of varying sizes with regard to the number of voters residing in them. This means that there is bound to be some disparity in the weightage accorded to the votes cast by individuals across different constituencies. This problem exists in all electoral formats where representatives are chosen from territorial constituencies. Needless to say the principle of `one-man, one- vote' cannot be applied in an absolute sense in the context of Panchayat elections in Scheduled Areas. However, it is the responsibility of the executive to identify territorial constituencies which have a certain degree of parity in their population levels. It is of course important to re- draw these constituencies from time to time, in keeping with the demographic shifts in the concerned area.
 

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