Ward Delimitation Must Rest on Population, Not Voter Count: Rajasthan HC Dismisses Todabhim Nagar Palika Challenge
The Rajasthan High Court dismissed a writ petition challenging ward delimitation of Nagar Palika Todabhim, holding that Section 9 of the Rajasthan Municipalities Act, 2009 mandates population as the basis for ward division, not the number of registered voters.
A Division Bench of the Rajasthan High Court at Jaipur, comprising Acting Chief Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma and Justice Shubha Mehta, dismissed a writ petition filed by Amrita Meena, a resident of Nagar Palika Todabhim in District Karauli, who had challenged the delimitation of wards ahead of municipal elections. The petitioner argued that the ward division produced extreme voter-count disparities across wards, violating Articles 14 and 243R of the Constitution. The bench rejected the challenge at the threshold, finding that the entire petition rested on a misreading of Section 9 of the Rajasthan Municipalities Act, 2009, which speaks of “population” and not “voters” as the criterion for ward representation.
The Dispute Before the Court
Amrita Meena approached the High Court contending that the delimitation exercise carried out for Nagar Palika Todabhim was constitutionally flawed. She pointed to two notifications — dated 24 March 2025 and 3 April 2025 — under which certain villages that had earlier been included in the municipality were excluded. Following these exclusions, the District Collector notified a proposed constitution of 35 wards, applying a criterion of 790 persons per ward with a permissible variation of plus or minus 10 per cent.
The petitioner's grievance crystallised when the State Election Commission published a draft electoral roll on 24 March 2026. That roll, she submitted, revealed that the actual number of voters across wards varied wildly. Ward No. 25 carried 973 voters while Ward No. 30 had only 217 voters — a disparity that, she argued, far exceeded the permissible 10 per cent variation and rendered the delimitation arbitrary.
Senior Counsel Mr. Anil Mehta, assisted by Mr. Yashodhar Pandey, pressed the argument that such voter-count imbalances gave some voters disproportionate representative weight over others. He also submitted that the delimitation had failed to properly proportion wards for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes, with larger OBC and SC/ST populations being placed in higher-voter wards while general category wards were kept smaller. He relied on Section 9(2) of the Rajasthan Municipalities Act, 2009 to contend that each ward must carry a proper proportion of population.
The Statutory Text at the Centre of the Dispute
Section 9 of the Rajasthan Municipalities Act, 2009 governs the division of a municipality into wards for electoral purposes. Sub-section (1) provides that a municipality shall be divided into as many wards as there are total seats fixed for it under Section 6(1). Sub-section (2) states that the representation of each ward shall be on the basis of the population of that ward and shall, as far as possible, be in the same proportion as the total number of seats for the municipality bear to its population.
The provision does not use the word “voters” at any point. The bench reproduced Section 9 in full in its order, treating the statutory text as dispositive of the challenge.
How the Bench Reasoned
The Additional Advocate General, Mr. G.S. Gill, assisted by Ms. Shikha Sharma, opposed the petition and relied on the Division Bench judgment in Sheela Kumari v. State of Rajasthan & Ors. (D.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 7718/2025 and connected petitions), decided on 14 November 2025. He submitted that the present petition deserved dismissal at the threshold.
The bench agreed with the State's position, though it addressed the matter on the statutory text rather than solely on the earlier precedent. It observed that the judgment in Sheela Kumari had been reserved at the relevant stage, and proceeded to examine the present petition on its own merits.
The court found the petition to be based on a fundamental mispleading. The delimitation criterion of 790 persons per ward was applied to population, as the statute requires. The petitioner's complaint, however, was about the number of voters in each ward — a different figure altogether. The bench explained that a ward may have a higher population but a lower voter count because children below the age of 18 years form part of the population but are not registered voters. A ward with a large proportion of children would therefore show fewer voters even if its population is within the prescribed range.
The bench held that the assumption underlying the petition — that wards must be determined by equalising the number of voters — was wholly misconceived. The Act of 2009 simply does not support that reading. The disparity in voter counts across wards, including the gap between Ward No. 25 and Ward No. 30, did not by itself establish any violation of the delimitation criteria, which operated on population figures.
Outcome
The Division Bench dismissed the writ petition. All pending applications in the matter were also dismissed. The judgment was pronounced on 22 June 2026, with arguments having concluded and the judgment reserved on 23 April 2026.