9Delimitation of constituencies

(1) The Commission shall, in the manner herein provided, then, distribute the seats in the House of the People allocated to each State and the seats assigned to the Legislative Assembly of each State as readjusted on the basis of 1971 census to single-member territorial constituencies and delimit them on the basis of the census figures as ascertained, at the census held in the year ¹[2001], having regard to the provisions of the Constitution, the provisions of the Act specified in section 8 and the following provisions, namely:--

(a) all constituencies shall, as far as practicable, be geographically compact areas, and in delimiting them regard shall be had to physical features, existing boundaries of administrative units, facilities of communication and public convenience;

(b) every assembly constituency shall be so delimited as to fall wholly within one parliamentary constituency;

(c) constituencies in which seats are reserved for the Scheduled Castes shall be distributed in different parts of the State and located, as far as practicable, in those areas where the proportion of their population to the total is comparatively large; and

(d) constituencies in which seats are reserved for the Scheduled Tribes shall, as far as practicable, be located in areas where the proportion of their population to the total is the largest.

(2) The Commission shall--

(a) publish its proposals for the delimitation of constituencies, together with the dissenting proposals, if any, of any associate member who desires publication thereof, in the Gazette of India and in the Official Gazettes of all the States concerned and also in such other manner as it thinks fit;

(b) specify a date on or after which the proposals shall be further considered by it;

(c) consider all objections and suggestions which may have been received by it before the date so specified, and for the purpose of such consideration, hold one or more public sittings at such place or places in each State as it thinks fit; and

(d) thereafter by one or more orders determine--

(i) the delimitation of parliamentary constituencies; and

(ii) the delimitation of assembly constituencies,

of each State.