NEW DELHI: In a move that will pave the way for assembly elections in the Union Territory of J&K, the Centre has begun the process of fresh delimitation of assembly seats as well as readjustment of boundaries of parliamentary constituencies.The move comes more than six months after abrogation of Article 370 in J&K and three-and-a-half months since the state of J&K was reorganised into the UTs of J&K and Ladakh.Sources told TOI that the law secretary wrote to chief election commissioner Sunil Arora on Monday stating that the government had decided to go ahead with constitution of the Delimitation Commission provided for in the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019. The panel, to be set up under Section 3 of the Delimitation Act of 2002, will be headed by a serving or retired judge of the Supreme Court, with the CEC or an election commissioner nominated by him and the state election commissioner of the UT concerned as its ex-officio members.The law secretary requested the CEC to confirm himself as a member of the delimitation panel or nominate an election commissioner for the job. Arora chose to nominate election commissioner Sushil Chandra for the panel. A communication in this regard has gone to the law secretary.The delimitation process may take at least four months. Assembly polls in J&K, which is currently under President’s rule, can be held after that. The delimitation, which will be carried out based on 2011 Census figures, is expected to address Jammu region’s long-standing demand for better representation in the assembly.The last time a delimitation exercise took place in J&K was in 1995. The state was under President’s rule even then, as the delimitation panel headed by Justice K K Gupta (retd) went about the exercise in extremely difficult circumstances.As per Section 60 of J&K Reorganisation Act, the number of seats in the legislative assembly shall be increased from 107 to 114. Delimitation of constituencies must be carried out to determine the number of seats to be reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the assembly. The delimitation panel will also determine the assembly constituencies into which the UT shall be divided, the extent of such constituencies and which of these shall be reserved for SCs/STs. The panel is also tasked with adjustment of boundaries and description of the extent of parliamentary constituencies in each UT.A presidential notification had earlier corrected an anomaly pertaining to Section 63 of J&K Reorganisation Act, which stated that “until the relevant figures for the first census taken after the year 2026 have been published, it shall not be necessary to readjust the division of successor UT of J&K into assembly and parliamentary constituencies”. The President on October 31 suspended operation of this section.