K. Purushottam Reddy v. Union of India and Ors.
Background
After Jammu and Kashmir was reorganised into Union Territories in 2019, the Union Government conducted a delimitation exercise (via 2020 and 2021 notifications) that increased the number of seats in the J&K Legislative Assembly. The petitioner argued that a similar delimitation exercise, mandated by Section 26 of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 (which was to raise Andhra Pradesh's assembly seats from 175 to 225 and Telangana's from 119 to 153), had never been carried out, and that excluding these two states while covering Jammu and Kashmir was arbitrary and discriminatory.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court held that Section 26 of the AP Reorganisation Act is expressly made "subject to" Article 170 of the Constitution, whose proviso constitutionally freezes any readjustment of seats in State Legislative Assemblies until census figures from the first census after 2026 are published, so no delimitation could lawfully occur for Andhra Pradesh or Telangana yet. It rejected the parity argument with Jammu and Kashmir because J&K, as a Union Territory, is governed by Article 239A rather than Article 170, making the two situations constitutionally distinct (a point already settled in the Court's earlier Haji Abdul Gani Khan judgment). The Court also rejected the "legitimate expectation" argument, holding that this doctrine cannot override an express constitutional bar. The writ petitions were accordingly dismissed.
Lesson Learnt
A statutory promise (like a state reorganisation act's seat-increase provision) that is explicitly made "subject to" a constitutional provision cannot be enforced ahead of the constitutional condition being met, and the doctrine of "legitimate expectation" in administrative law can never be used to override a clear constitutional or statutory bar.