Law on Jammu and Kashmir against Indians: Plea in Supreme Court

Source – indiatimes.com

NEW DELHI: The Centre and the J&K government on Monday advocated a cautious approach to dissuade the Supreme Court from passing any interim order on petitions challenging provisions of the Indian and Jammu & Kashmir Constitutions which “discriminated” against Indians vis-a-vis state subjects.

Appearing for the petitioners, senior advocate Ranjit Kumar said Article 35A of the Indian Constitution and Section 6 of the J&K Constitution read together provided that while a state subject, if she returned from Pakistan having migrated before 1954, would be entitled to employment and could own property in the state, Indians from others states would not be entitled to the benefits even if they were born and had lived in the state for decades. “These are discriminating provisions and must be struck down as unconstitutional,” he said.

Before a bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud could comment, attorney general K K Venugopal said, “This is a very sensitive issue. Since the Kashmir interlocutor is meeting people from different strata in political and social spheres to find a solution to the issue, it will not be prudent to pass any interim order on these petitions at this stage one way or the other as it can be counter-productive to the process which is ongoing.”

The AG was joined by senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, who appeared for J&K, and dissuaded the bench from passing any interim order. “The issue under challenge is already covered by judgments of the SC. The challenge involves Article 35A of the Constitution of India, Section 6 of the J&K Constitution and the Presidential Order, 1954, issued under Article 370 of the Constitution. As long as they are valid, the petitioners cannot get any interim relief. There is, therefore, no urgency as these issues are decades old,” Dwivedi said.

J&K advocate general Jehangir Iqbal Ganai and standing counsel M Shoeb Alam said four SC judgments, two by constitution benches and two by division benches, had settled the provisions under challenge. However, the bench asked the parties to complete pleading in the petition and posted the matter for final hearing on August 6.

The petitions, on behalf of around 4,000 people, claimed that their forefathers were taken from Gurdaspur and Amritsar in Punjab to the Jammu area as sweepers or employees of the municipal corporation in 1957, three years after the deadline was fixed by the J&K Constitution for permanent state subjects. Yet, they were not entitled to own property or avail employment under the state government, they complained.