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| Sc declines to adjourn resettlement case | | | New Delhi | Dec 6
The Apex court today strongly rejected the plea of Government of Jammu of Kashmir through its council, Axis Suhrawardy praying for adjournment of Resettlement case for another six months.
Praying before the court, Suhrawardy said, the resettlement act is very controversial and as such it needs more time.
Strongly opposing the plea of the Government of Jammu and Kashmir to adjourn the case, Prof. Bhim Singh representing the petitioner, Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party submitted that the draconian law was responsible for the rise of militancy in J&K and its existences continues of threat the security and the sovereignty of the country. The Chief Justice declined to accept the request of J&K Government the case may be listed next Tuesday as it was at serial no. two.
The Resettlement Act was enacted by National Conference government headed by Sheikh Mohd. Abdullah in September, 1982. Prof. Bhim Singh who opposed the bill in the Assembly on the request of the Congress legislature party. Prof. Singh was alone who opposed the bill on the floors of the state Assembly, on the roads and then before the Supreme Court of India. B.K. Nehru, the then Governor of J&K refused to sign the bill and referred it to the President of India. The President of India, late Giani Zail Singh referred it under Article 143 of the Constitution of India to the Supreme Court for its advisory opinion on 30.09.1982. The most objectionable part of the bill as was described by the Governor was, “That that Act, as it now stands, suffers from many defects and deficiencies-constitutional and other. The former attract the responsibilities laid upon me by my oath of office which requires me to “Preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and the Law to get the bill through again by the Legislature.
The Governor in his reference to the President of India raised a strong objection saying that if such Legislature is passed it shall have serious consequences the persons, he said, who may have deliberately and voluntarily migrated to Pakistan, settled there, taken Pakistani citizenship appropriated evacuee property, served in the Pakistani civil or armed services, fought against India or committed other treasonable acts against the country can, at any time of their choosing, return to India (and to the State) and settle here as a matter of legal right. Even the descendents of the migrants have been vested the right of return and claiming their immovable property in Jammu and Kashmir.
November 6, 2001 returned the bill in three words, ‘returned respectfully unanswered’. The Chier Minister of J&K declared that he shall implement the law by December 2001.
It was Prof. Bhim Singh who filed a petition in the Supreme Court of India challenging the Act when none of the political parties including Congress and the BJP could take any concrete step of defeat the draconian law. The Supreme Court of India stayed the Act providing relief to more than one million allottees in Jammu and Kashmir who were allotted evacuee land and houses, most of them are refugees from POK. Prof Him Singh has been fighting this case single handed with the cooperation of battery of senior advocates including K.K. Venugopal. |
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