Overview
- A Supreme Court bench of Justices B.V. Nagarathna and R. Mahadevan issued notice to the Union government on a petition by Dr. Jaya Thakur challenging the delay mechanism in the 33% reservation law.
- The court described women as the country’s “largest minority,” noting they make up about 48% of the population yet remain underrepresented in legislatures.
- While stressing that enforcing a law lies with the executive, the bench said it can ask when delimitation is planned and did not fix the next hearing date.
- The 2023 amendment (Article 334A) makes implementation contingent on the next census followed by delimitation; the government has indicated the census is planned for 2027, implying further delay.
- The petitioner seeks to strike down the contingency as void ab initio and argues earlier reservation-related amendments were implemented without waiting for new census data or delimitation.