Well, that is the number of seats to be reserved for women in Lok Sabha in the first round if the women’s reservation bill is passed. The rules for determining number of seats to be reserved are as follows.
Example 1: Puducherry has one general seat. This will be reserved for women in the first election and open in second and third elections. Example 2: Manipur has two seats, of which one is reserved for STs. Thus, both seats will be reserved in the first election and open in the second and third elections. Example 3: Delhi has seven seats: six general and one SC. In the each election 2 seats (seven divided by three, rounded to nearest integer) will be reserved. In the first election, one general and one SC seat will be reserved, and in the next two elections, two general seats will be reserved. We compute that this results in 192, 179 and 175 seats (out of 545) being reserved for women in the first three elections. A similar computation shows that 1367, 1365 and 1364 (out of 4090 seats of the legislative assemblies of 28 states and Delhi) will be reserved for women in the first three elections. Excel file with detailed computation is available here.
What is petitioning? Petitioning is a formal process that involves sending a written appeal to Parliament. The public can petition Parliament to make MPs aware of their opinion and/ or to request action. Who petitions and how? Anyone can petition Parliament. The only requirement is that petitions be submitted in the prescribed format, in either Hindi or English, and signed by the petitioner. In the case of Lok Sabha, the petition is normally required to be countersigned by an MP. According to the Rules of Lok Sabha, "This practice is based on the principle that petitions are normally presented by members in their capacity as elected representatives of the people, and that they have to take full responsibility for the statements made therein and answer questions on them in the House, if any, are raised." Petitions can be sent to either House in respect of:
The petition should not raise matters that are currently sub-judice or for which remedy is already available under an existing law of the Central Government. Petition formats can be accessed at: Lok Sabha; Rajya Sabha What happens to the petition once it has been submitted? Once submitted, the petition may either be tabled in the House or presented by an MP on behalf of the petitioner. These are then examined by the Committee on Petitions. The Committee may choose to circulate the petition and undertake consultations before presenting its report (For instance, the Petition praying for development of Railway network in Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and other Himalayan States). It may also invite comments from the concerned Ministries. The recommendations of the Committee are then presented in the form of a report to the House. Previous reports can be accessed at the relevant committee pages on the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha websites.
