The Safeguards: Seats, Services and Commissions

In one line

Reserved seats in the legislatures, a claim on the services, three Commissions and the Presidential lists: the machinery that surrounds reservation and is not itself reservation.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: Part XVI of the Constitution, articles 330 to 342A, contains the special provisions relating to certain classes. Articles 330 and 332 reserve seats for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the House of the People and in the State Legislative Assemblies; article 330A and article 332A, inserted by the One Hundred and Sixth Amendment 2023, reserve seats for women in each; article 331 and the former article 333 concerned the Anglo-Indian community; article 334 and article 334A fix the periods and conditions; article 335 requires the claims of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes to be considered consistently with efficiency; articles 338, 338A and 338B create the three National Commissions; article 339 gives the Union control over the administration of Scheduled Areas; article 340 provides for a Backward Classes Commission; and articles 341, 342 and 342A provide for the Presidential lists.

Reserved seats in the legislatures

Article 330. Seats shall be reserved in the House of the People for the Scheduled Castes, for the Scheduled Tribes except those in the autonomous districts of Assam, and for the Scheduled Tribes in the autonomous districts of Assam. The number is to bear as nearly as may be the same proportion to the total number of seats allotted to the State as the population of the community bears to the total population of the State.

Article 332. The same, for the Legislative Assembly of every State.

Article 331 and article 333. Nomination of members of the Anglo-Indian community to the House of the People and to a State Legislative Assembly. Both ceased to have effect on 25 January 2020, the Ninety-fifth Amendment having extended the reservation only to that date and the One Hundred and Fourth Amendment 2019 having extended the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe reservation without extending the Anglo-Indian nomination.

Article 334. The reservation of seats and the representation by nomination shall cease on the expiration of a specified period, which successive amendments have extended; the One Hundred and Fourth Amendment 2019 extended the reservation for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes to eighty years from the commencement, that is to 25 January 2030, and allowed the Anglo-Indian nomination to lapse.

Articles 330A and 332A, One Hundred and Sixth Amendment 2023. As nearly as may be one-third of the seats in the House of the People, and in every State Legislative Assembly, including one-third of the seats reserved for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, shall be reserved for women.

Article 334A. The reservation for women shall take effect after an exercise of delimitation is undertaken for that purpose after the relevant figures for the first census taken after the commencement of the Amendment have been published, and shall cease twenty-five years from the commencement. It is dealt with in [Women in the Legislatures].