CLAT PG Current Affairs — 17 September 2026

The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill reserves one-third of Lok Sabha and state assembly seats for women, including within SC and ST quotas. Passed by Parliament in September 2023, the reservation cannot take effect until after the next delimitation exercise is completed. Home Minister Amit Shah noted that delimitation will also increase the total number of reserved seats for SCs and STs, meaning women from these communities will gain seats on an expanded base.

The 106th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2023 (passed as the Constitution 128th Amendment Bill, renumbered on enactment) inserts Articles 330A and 332A into the Constitution. Article 330A reserves not less than one-third of all Lok Sabha seats for women, including seats already reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Article 332A does the same for state legislative assemblies. A new Article 334A mandates rotation of reserved constituencies after each delimitation exercise.

The critical constitutional mechanism is the delimitation trigger: the reservation activates only after the first census conducted after the Act's commencement is published, and only after a subsequent delimitation exercise is completed. Since the 2021 census was delayed and delimitation follows census publication, implementation is realistically deferred to post-2026 or later.

This amendment requires ratification by at least half the state legislatures under Article 368(2) because it affects representation in state assemblies — a key procedural fact examiners test.

The reservation is not permanent; Article 334A provides it shall cease 15 years after commencement, mirroring the sunset clause for SC/ST reservations under Article 334. There is no reservation for OBC women within this amendment — a point of political controversy and a likely distractor in MCQs.

The amendment also does not apply to Rajya Sabha or state legislative councils, limiting it strictly to directly elected houses.

The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh at Srinagar quashed the preventive detention of a Shopian resident under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act. The court held that merely tagging a person as an Over Ground Worker of militants, without placing adequate corroborating material before the detaining authority, renders the detention order unsustainable. Incomplete grounds that fail to satisfy the detainee's right to make an effective representation cannot meet the constitutional standard required for valid preventive detention.

The Public Safety Act, 1978 (J&K PSA) is a preventive detention law that allows detention for up to two years without trial for persons deemed a threat to public order or state security. Preventive detention laws in India exist under Entry 3 of the Concurrent List and are constitutionally permitted by Article 22, which simultaneously provides safeguards: the detainee must be told the grounds of detention as soon as possible, must be given the earliest opportunity to make a representation, and must have that representation considered by an Advisory Board.

The High Court's ruling in this case turns on a foundational doctrine: the grounds of detention must be specific, proximate, and supported by material that the detainee can actually contest. Courts have consistently held — since Haradhan Saha v. State of West Bengal (1975) and later A.K. Roy v. Union of India (1982) — that vague or bare labels without supporting facts are constitutionally infirm because they deny the detainee the right to make an effective representation, vitiating the Article 22(5) safeguard.

The 'OGW' (Over Ground Worker) tag, in the context of Kashmir, is a security classification given to persons allegedly facilitating militant operations. However, its use as a detention ground requires substantive evidentiary backing. The court's finding that the material was 'incomplete' signals that the detaining authority failed the test of sufficiency of grounds — a well-established judicial review standard under which courts check not the subjective satisfaction of the authority but whether the material placed before it could rationally support that satisfaction.

The Supreme Court ruled that an Assessing Officer cannot reopen an income-tax assessment that has already been settled by the Income Tax Settlement Commission under Section 245D of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Once the Commission passes a final settlement order, it becomes conclusive and binding. The AO's power under Section 147 to reopen assessments does not extend to matters that the Commission has already adjudicated, as doing so would nullify the settlement mechanism entirely.

This ruling clarifies a jurisdictional boundary within India's income tax architecture. The Income Tax Settlement Commission (ITSC) was a quasi-judicial body created under Chapter XIX-A of the Income Tax Act, 1961, designed to allow taxpayers to disclose undisclosed income and obtain a final, binding settlement. Section 245D governs the Commission's procedure, and Section 245I declares its orders conclusive — meaning they cannot be reopened or revised by any income tax authority, including the Assessing Officer.

Section 147 empowers an AO to reopen assessments if income has escaped taxation. The conflict arises when an AO tries to use Section 147 against an assessee whose case the ITSC has already settled. The Supreme Court's ruling draws a clear line: Section 245I's conclusiveness overrides Section 147's reopening power. The legislative intent behind the Settlement Commission was finality — giving taxpayers certainty in exchange for voluntary disclosure. Allowing AOs to reopen settled matters would defeat that purpose entirely.

This is a classic principle of special law overriding general law (generalia specialibus non derogant). Chapter XIX-A is the special regime; Section 147 is the general assessment power. The special regime prevails. CLAT PG examiners frequently test this kind of statutory conflict and the principle used to resolve it, making this ruling an important application-layer topic.