The Delimitation Commission Act, 1962, is an Act of the Indian Parliament that served as the legal framework for the second Delimitation Commission. The Act was created in 1962 to provide for the readjustment of electoral constituencies following the 1961 census. Its purpose was to ensure the principle of "one vote, one value" by fixing the limits and boundaries of territorial constituencies to reflect population changes.
The Act enabled the establishment of a high-power Delimitation Commission to carry out the process. A key mechanism of the Act was that the Commission’s orders, once published in the Gazette of India, had the force of law and, as per Section 10(2), "shall not be called in question in any Court". The orders were to be laid before the House of the People and the State Legislative Assembly, but no modifications were permissible by them. The Commission was mandated to readjust the allocation of seats in the House of the People (Lok Sabha) to the States and the total number of seats in the Legislative Assembly of each State.
The Act connects directly to Article 82 and Article 170 of the Constitution, which require Parliament to enact a Delimitation Act after every Census. It is part of a series of such legislation, including the Delimitation Commission Act, 1952, the Delimitation Act, 1972, and the current Delimitation Act, 2002. The orders made under the 1962 Act superseded the provisions of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, and the Delimitation of Parliamentary and Assembly Constituencies Order, 1961. The non-justiciability of the Commission's orders was affirmed by the Supreme Court in Meghraj Kothari v. Delimitation Commission & Others in 1966.
The Delimitation Commission Act, 1962, has been replaced by subsequent Acts. The core principle of delimitation based on population has been significantly altered by the 42nd Amendment Act of 1976, which froze the allocation of seats in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies until 2000, a freeze later extended until the first Census after 2026 by the 84th Amendment Act of 2001.