India’s Supreme Court has referred an earlier ruling on two-child restrictions for local election candidates to a larger bench, questioning whether the population concerns that supported the rules still apply.
The decision came in the case of Mangala Bhimrao Ingle, an elected village council head in Maharashtra who challenged her disqualification after the birth of her third child. The court continued an interim order allowing her to remain in office while her appeal is pending.
The judges did not strike down the Maharashtra provision or abolish comparable restrictions across India. Their order asks a larger bench to reconsider the reasoning behind a 2003 Supreme Court judgment that upheld a similar rule in Haryana.
The Maharashtra case
Ingle was elected sarpanch, or head, of Kakoda Gram Panchayat in 2022. The Supreme Court said she had given birth to a third child in 2014. Her election was set aside under a provision of the Maharashtra Village Panchayats Act that disqualifies people with more than two children in specified circumstances.
After state authorities disqualified her, the Bombay High Court upheld the decision in August 2025. Ingle took the matter to the Supreme Court, which had stayed the High Court’s order in November 2025. On 4 November 2026, the court said that interim protection would continue until the civil appeal is decided.
Justices Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Alok Aradhe said the constitutional validity of the relevant Maharashtra provision had not been challenged directly before them, so they could not adjudicate on it directly. Instead, they examined whether the assumptions supporting the earlier precedent still held.
An earlier precedent
In the 2003 case of Javed vs State of Haryana, a three-judge bench upheld provisions of the Haryana Panchayati Raj Act that disqualified people with more than two living children from certain village council positions. The court considered the restriction against equality protections and accepted the population concerns behind the legislation.
In its new judgment, the two-judge bench noted that the Haryana provisions examined in Javed were later repealed. The judgment’s reasoning nevertheless became an important precedent in subsequent cases about restrictions on local electoral participation.
The judges directed the court registry to put their order before the Chief Justice of India so an appropriate larger bench can be constituted. The reference is a request for reconsideration, not a final decision that the 2003 precedent has been overturned.
Fertility and representation
The bench said the demographic foundation of the earlier approach had changed. It cited a fall in India’s total fertility rate from about three children per woman around the time of the 2003 judgment to 1.9 in the official estimate it considered.
The total fertility rate is an estimate of the number of children a woman would have over her reproductive life if the fertility rates for different age groups in a given period remained unchanged. The judges compared the figure of 1.9 with a replacement level of around 2.1.
They stressed that India’s total population had not yet begun to decline. One reason is population momentum: a large number of people born during earlier periods of higher fertility are now in their reproductive years. The bench said continued low fertility could change the country’s age profile over time, increasing the proportion of older people.
The judges also questioned the connection between the number of children a person has and their capacity to represent a community. They said restrictions tied to family size could exclude citizens from political representation and place reproductive decisions in tension with democratic participation.
Concerns about women’s choices
The judgment said apparently gender-neutral restrictions could have unequal consequences for women. It referred to a 2009 study of the application of the norm in parts of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, and observed that some women may have little control over decisions about family size.
The bench considered reproductive choice part of the personal liberty protected by Article 21 of India’s Constitution. It said restrictions affecting that autonomy must be tested for reasonableness, and questioned the use of electoral disqualification to pursue population control.
Rules vary between states. The court’s order gives case-specific protection to Ingle while leaving the broader question for further consideration. A larger bench’s eventual decision, and any later proceedings or legislative changes, will determine what happens next.
Featured image: AI-generated illustration.
