01 Read
What happened
The Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Eighth Amendment) Bill, 2023, enacted as the Constitution (One Hundred and Sixth Amendment) Act, reserves one-third of seats for women in the Lok Sabha, State Legislative Assemblies, and the Delhi Legislative Assembly. Critically, the reservation activates only after the next delimitation exercise following the 2026 census, meaning women's quota seats will not appear before 2034 at the earliest, making the constitutional amendment's effective operation contingent on future administrative action.
02 Understand
Why it matters
The 106th Constitutional Amendment inserts three new provisions: Article 330A (reservation for women in Lok Sabha), Article 332A (reservation in State Assemblies), and amends Article 239AA for Delhi. It reserves not less than one-third of the total seats, including seats already reserved for SCs and STs within those categories.
The critical constitutional design tension here is between the right conferred and its delayed activation. The Act explicitly states the reservation shall come into force after the first delimitation exercise conducted after the relevant census following the Act's commencement. Since the census itself has not been conducted, delimitation cannot follow, placing effective implementation well into the 2030s.
From an Article 14/15 lens, affirmative action reservations for women are constitutionally valid under Article 15(3), which permits the State to make special provisions for women and children. This is the foundational provision the amendment rests on — it is an enabling, not a rights-restricting, provision.
The amendment also raises an Article 300A-adjacent question: do existing male MPs hold a 'property-like' entitlement in their seats that reservation could implicate? Courts have consistently held that no such vested right exists in an elected seat.
For CLAT PG, the examiner will test whether aspirants can distinguish between the constitutional authority (Article 15(3)), the amendment number (106th), the mechanism (delimitation-linked), and the exclusion (OBC women are not separately reserved under this Act, which was a major political debate point).
The critical constitutional design tension here is between the right conferred and its delayed activation. The Act explicitly states the reservation shall come into force after the first delimitation exercise conducted after the relevant census following the Act's commencement. Since the census itself has not been conducted, delimitation cannot follow, placing effective implementation well into the 2030s.
From an Article 14/15 lens, affirmative action reservations for women are constitutionally valid under Article 15(3), which permits the State to make special provisions for women and children. This is the foundational provision the amendment rests on — it is an enabling, not a rights-restricting, provision.
The amendment also raises an Article 300A-adjacent question: do existing male MPs hold a 'property-like' entitlement in their seats that reservation could implicate? Courts have consistently held that no such vested right exists in an elected seat.
For CLAT PG, the examiner will test whether aspirants can distinguish between the constitutional authority (Article 15(3)), the amendment number (106th), the mechanism (delimitation-linked), and the exclusion (OBC women are not separately reserved under this Act, which was a major political debate point).
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