The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a plea seeking a delimitation exercise to increase assembly seats in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, ruling that excluding the two states from a similar notification for Jammu and Kashmir was neither arbitrary nor discriminatory. Justices Surya Kant and N. Kotiswar Singh emphasized that delimitation provisions for states differ from those for Union Territories.

The plea, filed by K. Purushottam Reddy, sought to enforce Section 26 of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, arguing that prioritizing Jammu and Kashmir’s delimitation was unconstitutional. The court clarified that Article 170 of the Constitution restricts state delimitation until after the first census post-2026, currently projected for 2031 due to delays. Andhra Pradesh has 175 assembly seats, and Telangana 119, unchanged since their 2014 bifurcation.

The bench warned that granting the plea could trigger similar demands from other states, opening “floodgates of litigation.” The ruling upholds the constitutional framework, noting Andhra and Telangana’s exclusion aligns with legal distinctions, unlike Jammu and Kashmir, where delimitation followed its 2019 reorganization into a Union Territory.

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