New Delhi, SRINAGAR, (PTK): Jammu and Kashmir witnessed a long evening of speculations with unverified reports trickling in about Article 35A ahead of hearing in Supreme Court on Monday.
Government may let go of the contentious article 35A, through an ordinance if it fails to get a favourable verdict from the apex court Mynation reported.
Ministry of home affairs (MHA) in an urgent fax message ordered 100 companies of paramilitary forces to rushed to the Valley over.
The fax is titled “Deployment of CAPFs coys in J&K”. Among the 100 companies, 45 will be from the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), 35 from the Border Security Force (BSF), whereas just 10 are from the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) and Indo-Tibetan Boder Police (ITBP) each.
Police and paramilitary forces have been put on high alert but there was no confirmation about any more detentions. Earlier the Jammu and Kashmir administration revoked the security allocated to more than 20 separatist leaders in Jammu and Kashmir including Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq. The decision comes just days before the Supreme court hearing on Article 35A which gives special rights to the citizen of Jammu and Kashmir.
The action comes eight days after Forty CRPF personnel were killed and five injured in one of the deadliest terror strikes in Jammu and Kashmir when a Jaish-e-Mohammad suicide bomber blew up an explosive-laden vehicle near their bus in Pulwama district.
The bus was part of a convoy of 78 vehicles carrying CRPF personnel from Jammu to Srinagar.
What is Article 35A?
Article 35A gives special rights to the Jammu and Kashmir’s permanent residents. It disallows people from outside the state from buying or owning immovable property there, settle permanently, or avail themselves of state-sponsored scholarship schemes. It also forbids the J-K government from hiring people who are non-permanent residents.
– Article 35A allows the state to grant special privileges and rights to its ‘permanent residents’, to the exclusion of others living in the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Article 370 of the Constitution grants special status to Jammu and Kashmir, while Article 35A empowers the state legislature to define the state’s “permanent residents” and their special rights and privileges.
What is the controversy?
The provision in Article 35A that grants special rights and privileges to permanent citizens appears in the Constitution as an “appendix”, and not as an amendment.
According to the NGO, Article 35A should be held “unconstitutional” as the President could not have “amended the Constitution” by way of the 1954 order, and that it was only supposed to be a “temporary provision”. The Article was never presented before Parliament, and came into effect immediately. (PTK)
Comments are closed.