Article 82 is a provision within Part V of the Constitution of India that mandates the readjustment of seats in the House of the People (Lok Sabha) and the division of states into territorial constituencies after every official Census. The provision was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on January 4, 1949, to ensure that parliamentary representation remains proportional to the population, thereby upholding the principle of "one person, one vote".
The mechanism of Article 82 works by empowering Parliament to determine the authority and manner of this readjustment through a law, typically a Delimitation Act. This Act establishes a statutory body, the Delimitation Commission, which is tasked with redrawing constituency boundaries based on the latest census data. The Commission's orders have the force of law and cannot be challenged in any court. A key provision is that any readjustment does not affect representation until the dissolution of the then-existing Lok Sabha.
The application of Article 82 has been significantly altered by constitutional amendments. The 42nd Amendment Act, 1976, initially froze the total number of Lok Sabha seats per state based on the 1971 Census data until the year 2000 to encourage population control. This freeze on the allocation of seats was subsequently extended by the 84th Amendment Act, 2001, until the first census taken after the year 2026. While the total number of seats remains static based on the 1971 Census, the 87th Amendment Act, 2003, permitted the use of the 2001 Census data solely for the purpose of redrawing the boundaries of the existing territorial constituencies and adjusting the reservation of seats for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. This means that the number of seats a state has is frozen, but the geographical area of those constituencies can be redrawn to reflect population shifts within the state. Article 82 is closely connected to Article 170(3), which mandates a similar delimitation process for State Legislative Assemblies.