Why Women’s Reservation Bill Can’t Be Implemented Immediately? It Would Be Illegal | Explained – News18

Implementing the Women’s Reservation Bill 2023, or the ‘Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam’, without a fresh census and delimitation exercise could expose the legislation to a legal challenge as there needs to be criteria for reserving a particular seat for women, top government sources have told News18.

Questions are being raised on why the bill is not being implemented immediately from the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and why the Narendra Modi government chose to bring in a new bill rather than pursue the bill passed by the Rajya Sabha in 2010.

Sonia Gandhi said in Parliament on Wednesday the bill should be implemented immediately and the OBC reservation should also be given in the women quota.

Government sources, however, explained that the women’s reservation bill has to wait for a fresh census and delimitation exercise. “There has to be criteria to reserve any seat for a women candidate. If we do this, without a fresh census and latest data, it will be up for legal challenge. The last census data is of 2011 and the last delimitation was done even before that. The 2021 census was delayed due to the Covid pandemic,” a government source explained.

Sources say once the census is conducted after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the delimitation exercise can also be done after 2026 till when there is a freeze on the fresh delimitation exercise. Once the latest data is available, women’s reservation will be implemented as per the criteria fixed by the Election Commission of India. “Same holds good for any OBC quota within women reserved seats, if that is opted for in the future,” the source said. There is no OBC reservation in the Lok Sabha for any candidate, while 131 seats are reserved for SCs and STs.

Incidentally, the bill UPA brought in 2010 also did not account for any OBC reservation. Then law minister from Congress, Veerappa Moily, had ruled out providing reservation for OBCs in the Women’s Reservation Bill, saying the data on OBCs is not available at the national level.

A government source said there is a silver lining too as it is expected that the seats in the Lok Sabha could go up significantly after the next delimitation as the number of seats in the lower house has been stuck at 543 since 1976 while the population of the country has increased almost 2.5 times since. This is also the reason why the new Parliament building has a very large Lok Sabha chamber to allow the seating of a far more number of MPs than the current strength of 543. “That could mean that more seats than 180 could be reserved for women MPs in the Lok Sabha after the delimitation as the total number of seats would go up. So, women would get an even better deal,” a source told News18.

The government is citing Article 82 of the Constitution in the regard of census and delimitation needed before a fresh reservation being introduced in the house. BJP MP Nishikant Dubey cited the same in Parliament on Wednesday.

Why a New Bill?

A new bill had to be brought in as there are some significant changes in the Modi government’s bill compared to the UPA’s 2010 that was passed by the Rajya Sabha, sources said.

“The major change is while the 2010 bill mandated a rotation of seats reserved for women, the provision has been dropped in the present bill. In the earlier bill, it meant the woman-reserved seat would change in every general election putting a lot of uncertainty in the minds of sitting MPs. That provision has been changed in the present bill,” the source explained.

The Congress leader in Lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury had questioned on Tuesday why the government had not followed up on the bill brought by the UPA in 2010 in Rajya Sabha, claiming that the bill had not lapsed.