Women’s Reservation: Centre Weighs Constitutional Amendment to Advance Nari Shakti Vandan Act Implementation

The central government is contemplating a major move on the Nari Shakti Vandan Act, which provides women with 33% seats in the Lok Sabha and state legislatures.

The government is planning to pass this law before the delimitation process, which comes after the census.

Why the constitutional amendment is required: The law currently in place is the 106th Constitutional Amendment Act, which received Presidential approval in September 2023 and provides for the reservations to commence only after the delimitation process is over. If the government plans to commence the reservations before the delimitation is over, then it needs to pass another constitutional amendment bill in Parliament.

Though there has been no formal proposal yet from the Cabinet, there are reports of the government having held informal meetings with opposition leaders on this issue. Delimitation is a process that redraws the boundaries of constituencies.

For this, a "neutral" Delimitation Commission is formed, whose decisions cannot be challenged in court. Experts believe that while the Election Commission can delimit one or two states (such as Assam recently), this responsibility rests solely with the Delimitation Commission at the all-India level. Determining seat reservations without delimitation is a significant challenge. A rotation system could be considered as an alternative.

In the mid-1990s, the Geeta Mukherjee Committee recommended rotating reserved seats after every election. Under this cycle, all constituencies in the country would be reserved for women at least once after three general elections. However, the current law passed in 2023 does not include a rotation provision. It is noteworthy that this reservation will remain in effect for 15 years after implementation, which can be extended by Parliament.

Currently, there are sub-quotas (quotas within quotas) for women from Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs), but the opposition is demanding reservations for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) as well. Efforts to secure women's reservations have been ongoing since 1996, finally succeeding in 2023. If the government moves forward in this direction, it will be a revolutionary and rapid step towards ensuring women's participation in the country's democratic system.