New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday retained its defense verdict, requesting directives to go to the centre to hold demarcation events to increase the general seats in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
The judges of Surya Kant and N. Kotiswar Singh retained the decision to plea against K. Purushottam Reddy, who argued that demarcation exercises were only conducted on the joint territory of Jamu and Kashmir, excluding the judgments of Andhra Pradesh and the remote stretcher.
The petitioner’s lawyer said he was seeking equality with Jamu and Kashmir and conducting demarcation practices in Andhra Pradesh and Tlangana.
General KM Nataraj, other lawyers appearing in the centre, mentioned Article 26 of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Act and said that the demarcation process will only be carried out after the 2026 census is over. He said demarcation was a huge exercise that could not be performed overnight.
ASG said that demarcation activities in J&K are in the case of union territory and cannot be equated with states.
The petitioner’s lawyers objected to the distinction proposed between UT and a state and argued that Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland were included in the previous demarcation notice of the Centre, but were not issued by Andhra Pradesh and Tlangana, although the northern states were also governed by Article 170.
The bench asked if he was his argument that when power is exercised under the Center for the Demarcation Act, it must be uniformly applied to all states.
The lawyers said the states would also have joint territories related to the demarcation notice and references to Section 2(f) of the Demarcation Act.
He added: “The existence of AP and Telangana before JK notification was excluded. In the subsequent notification, the northeastern states were also omitted. The reason for being excluded was not Article 170. I think they ruled out the errors from the demarcation practice.”
