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| Maintaining dual character of Jammu and Kashmir | | A Dangerous Report -- I | | Neha
jammu, Apr 13: There were reports that Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), which is headed by the Prime Minister, would meet on Thursday and discuss, among other things, the National Conference's two suggestions - revocation of AFSPA and making the October 12, 2011 interlocutors' report on Jammu and Kashmir public. The CCS did meet but it did not really consider any of the demands as reportedly put forth by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah during his meeting with Union Home Minister P Chidambaram in Jammu on April 10. However, a leading national daily did carry a detailed story on what, according to it, lays enshrined in the report titled "A new compact with the people of Jammu and Kashmir". Since the said national daily has claimed that it has in its possession a copy of the report, one just cannot dismiss the story on the report as a figment of imagination.
The story says that while the interlocutors have rejected outright such demands as greater autonomy or pre-1953 constitutional status and self-rule asserting that "a pure and simple return to the pre-1953 situation would create a dangerous constitutional vacuum in the relationship between the Centre and Jammu and Kashmir", they have, instead, recommended "case-by-case review of all Central laws and Articles of the Constitution of India extended to the State", which were extended to the state after 1952. In other words, the interlocutors have suggested in their report a methodology that is consistent with the methodology adopted under the 1975 Indira Gandhi-Sheikh Abdullah Accord to find which of the Central laws were not in the best interest of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. (The Sheikh Abdullah-led government had in the late 1970s examined all the Central laws and had come to the conclusion that the extension of the Central laws to the state had only benefited the people of the state. In fact, Sheikh had gone by the opinion of his Deputy Chief Minister DD Thakur, who had said in his report that the needles of the clock cannot be turned back".)
To be more precise, the interlocutors' report has recommended setting up of a "Constitutional Committee that would review the applicability of Central statutes extended to Jammu and Kashmir after the July 1952 Delhi Agreement" and suggested that the "review process - once ratified by Parliament and the State legislature - would eventually end the extension by Presidential order of further Central laws to the State". (There exists no such thing as the 1952 Delhi Agreement. It's a false propaganda.) The Interlocutors have suggested that an "eminent jurist" should head the Constitutional Committee and it should have "members from the State and the rest of the country, who inspire confidence in all stakeholders". "The Constitutional Committee should be future-oriented and it should conduct its review solely on the basis of the powers the State needs to address the political, economic, social and cultural interests, concerns, grievances and aspirations of the people in all the three regions - Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, and all the sub-regions", the story also said and added that "the Committee will also need to reflect on the quantum of legislative, financial and administrative powers that the State Government should delegate to the three regions at all levels of governance".
One of the key recommendations made by the interlocutors in their report is that "Parliament will make no new laws applicable to Jammu and Kashmir unless these relate to the country's internal and external security and its vital economic interest". They have further suggested that the "Constitutional Committee will (have to) bear in mind the dual character of Jammu and Kashmir - as a constituent of the Indian Union and as a State enjoying special status in the Union under Article 370 of the Constitution while determining whether and to what extent the Central Acts and Articles have abridged the State Government's powers to cater to the welfare of its people".
The story, the said national daily carried yesterday, also said that the "recommendations of Constitutional Committee must be reached through consensus so that they are acceptable to all stakeholders represented in the State Assembly and Parliament"; that the "next step would be for the President, in exercise of the powers conferred by Clauses (1) and (3) of Article 370, to issue an order incorporating the recommendations"; that "this will have to be ratified by a Bill in both Houses of Parliament and by each House in the State Legislature by a margin of not less than two-thirds majority"; and that "it will then be presented to the President for assent". "Once this process is over, Clauses (1) and (3) of Article 370 will cease to be operative and no orders will be made by the President under these clauses from the date of the final order," the story on the interlocutors' report, according to the story, further said.
The other key recommendations made by the interlocutors in their report, as per the story, are that word "Temporary" from the heading Article 370 be replaced with the word "Special" as has been used for other State under Article 371 of the Indian Constitution, that the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir should be appointed "from a list of names prepared by the State Government in consultation with opposition parties", and that "fresh elections" should be held "within three months if Article 356 is used". (Article 356 is not really applicable to Jammu and Kashmir. It is the State Governor who can keep the state under his rule for a maximum period of six months invoking section 91 of the State Constitution and it is the Union President who can keep the state under his/her rule for any number of years without referring the issue of Jammu and Kashmir to the Parliament. The Union President enjoys unbridled executive powers under Article 370.)
Besides, the interlocutors have in their report recommended the setting up of three regional councils, one each for Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh; and segregation of Ladakh from Kashmir and suggested that the "proportion of officers from the All India Services should be gradually reduced in favour of officers from the State civil service". (To be continued) |
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