New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday sought the response of the Centre to examine a plea seeking implementation of the 2023 Nari Shakti Vandan Act which reserves one-third seats for women in the Lok Sabha and the state Assemblies.

A bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and R Mahadevan issued notice to the Centre while observing that women were the largest minority in the country.

"Our Preamble to the Constitution of India says all citizens are entitled to political and social equality. Who is the largest minority in this country? It is the women. It's almost 48 per cent.

This is about the political equality of women," Justice Nagarathna said. Appearing for petitioner Jaya Thakur, senior advocate Shobha Gupta said it is unfortunate that women have to move the court for representation after 75 years of independence of the country. She submitted that the Act reserves one-third of the total seats in the Lok Sabha and the state legislative assemblies based on data. The bench said enforcement of the law is the prerogative of the executive and no mandamus can be issued in these matters. "The courts have limitations when interfering with such policy matters," Justice Nagarathna said.

Jaya Thakur, in her plea filed through advocate Varun Thakur, has sought the implementation of the Act without waiting for the conduct of a fresh delimitation exercise. She said in her plea, "The petitioner herein prefers the present writ petition under Article 32 of the Constitution of India for the mandamus direction to declare the clog i.e. after delimitation is undertaken for this purposes after the relevant figures for the first census of 'One Hundred and Sixth Amendment Act 2023' as 'void-ab-initio' for immediate implementation of the 33 per cent Women Reservation, as per the constitution (One Hundred and Twenty Eight Amendment) Act, 2023 (Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam) in its true letter and spirit."