Supreme Court declines to rotate SC and ST reserved seats, upholds Section 9(1)(c) of Delimitation Act
A bench led by CJI Surya Kant told a Kadipur voter on 4 November 2026 that rotation is a matter for Parliament. The framework under Articles 330, 332, 334 and 82, the Delimitation Act, 2002, and the contrast with panchayats under Article 243D.
The Supreme Court on 4 November 2026 rejected a plea for mandatory rotation of seats reserved for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) in State Legislative Assemblies and Parliament. It held that the issue lies in Parliament's legislative domain and cannot be directed by courts.
The bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana was hearing a challenge to Section 9(1)(c) of the Delimitation Act, 2002. The provision requires reserved constituencies to be located in areas where the proportion of SC or ST population is comparatively large.
The Allahabad High Court had upheld Section 9(1)(c) and refused to order rotation of reserved seats. The Supreme Court declined to interfere.
The Kadipur plea
The petitioner, Jagdish Singh, is an elector of the 191-Kadipur Assembly Constituency in Sultanpur district, Uttar Pradesh. He argued that the seat has remained reserved for SCs for nearly seven decades since its creation.
Continuous reservation without rotation, he contended, violated Articles 14, 15 and 19 of the Constitution. He said it diluted the right to vote by compelling voters to choose only SC candidates, and benefited a few families rather than the broader community.
He asked for a rotation system like the one provided for panchayats and municipalities under Articles 243D and 243T. He also pointed out that the High Court had accepted rotation as the ideal method but held back, citing judicial restraint.
What the bench said in court
The bench observed that voters in a multiparty democracy are expected to vote on political ideology rather than caste or religion. "The voters are expected to vote for the party, not for the religion," Justice Bagchi said.
Justice Bagchi noted that whether concentrating reserved seats in areas with larger SC and ST populations creates caste divisions is for the legislature to examine. It does not, by itself, make the law unconstitutional.
The Court separated the constitutional right to vote from any claimed right to contest from a particular constituency. General-category candidates, it pointed out, can contest from non-reserved seats.
Justice Bagchi disagreed with the reasoning that a majority community will be elected anyway in a constituency with a high SC population. That assumes the majority votes on caste lines, he said, and a High Court cannot judicially pronounce on a democratic choice, which is for the voters.
The CJI remarked that the petitioner was "dialling the wrong number", since the demand for rotation should be raised before Parliament. The bench clarified that it could not rewrite the Constitution or the statute by adding a rotation requirement absent from Articles 330 and 332 and the Delimitation Act.
The order
The order records that the High Court turned down the challenge to Section 9(1)(c). It also records the petitioner's case that Assembly seats should be reserved on a rotational basis, as in municipal corporations.
The High Court had observed that although rotation ideally ought to be followed, a court cannot direct it and it is within Parliament's ambit. "We see no ground to take a different view," the Supreme Court said.
The petitioner may approach public representatives to build consensus for the rotation principle. The Court allowed him to file a representation before elected representatives seeking a change in the law.
What Articles 330 and 332 provide
Article 330 reserves seats in the House of the People for SCs and STs. Under clause (2), the number reserved in a State bears, as nearly as may be, the same proportion to the State's seats as the SC or ST population bears to its total population. Article 332 does the same for Legislative Assemblies.
Both articles speak of numbers and population, which is counted at the last published census. Neither says which constituencies carry the reservation, and neither mentions rotation.
Elections to reserved seats are held on a single electoral roll, M.P. Jain writes in Indian Constitutional Law, so that every voter in the constituency votes. There is no separate electorate, and an SC or ST candidate may also contest a general seat (V.V. Giri v. D.S. Dora, AIR 1959 SC 1318).
R.C. Poudyal v. Union of India (1994 Supp (1) SCC 324), a case on reserved seats in the Sikkim Assembly, is cited for the proposition that a reservation expressly provided in Article 332 cannot be challenged under Article 14.
Article 334 and the ten-year clock
The Constituent Assembly debated the Advisory Committee's report on minority rights on 25 and 26 May 1949. On 26 May it adopted an amendment moved by Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava, accepted by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, that reservation of seats and nominations would last ten years from the commencement of the Constitution.
Article 334 carries that time limit. M. Laxmikanth records in Indian Polity that it has been extended by ten years at a time, and M.P. Jain notes that the reservation was never meant to be permanent. The Constitution (104th Amendment) Act, 2019 extended it to eighty years from commencement.
Delimitation, Article 82 and the bar on courts
Article 82 requires the allocation of Lok Sabha seats among the States, and the division of each State into territorial constituencies, to be readjusted after each census by the authority and in the manner Parliament decides by law. Article 327 lets Parliament legislate on delimitation.
The 84th Amendment froze readjustment of seats among States until the first census after 2026, and the 87th Amendment moved the base for delimiting constituencies to the 2001 census (Laxmikanth, Indian Polity). The Delimitation Act, 2002 set up a Commission to delimit on that basis and re-fix the SC and ST seats without altering the total.
Article 329(a) bars any court from questioning the validity of a law on delimitation or the allotment of seats made under Article 327 or 328. In Meghraj Kothari v. Delimitation Commission (AIR 1967 SC 669), the Supreme Court treated the Commission's published orders as carrying the force of law within that bar.
Aditya Sondhi, writing on elections in the Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution, reads Meghraj Kothari as holding that delimitation is a special case: the constitutional bar applies because the Commission's orders are treated as law. The Kadipur order itself records that rotation is within Parliament's ambit.
Panchayats and municipalities: rotation in the text
Article 243D(1) reserves seats for SCs and STs in every panchayat in proportion to their population, and adds that those seats may be allotted by rotation to different constituencies in the panchayat. Women's seats under clause (3) carry the same permission. Reserved offices of chairperson are allotted by rotation to different panchayats at each level.
Article 243T makes similar provision for municipalities. The Constitution (Sixty-fourth) Amendment Bill on Panchayati Raj, introduced on 15 May 1989, aimed to provide reservation for SCs and STs in panchayats on par with Parliament and the State legislatures, K.C. Sivaramakrishnan records in the Oxford Handbook chapter on local government.
In Union of India v. Rakesh Kumar (2010), the Supreme Court described Article 243D as a distinct and independent constitutional basis for reservation, not comparable to Articles 15(4) and 16(4). A five-judge bench in Dr. K. Krishna Murthy v. Union of India (2010) said local self-government reservations differ in nature and purpose from those in education and public employment.
The bench noted that Articles 330 and 332 and the Delimitation Act contain no rotation requirement. Under the provisos to Articles 82 and 330, seat allocation and reserved-seat numbers stay tied to the 2001 census until figures from the first census taken after 2026 are published.