ABSTRACT
Seventy two years prior, soon after India and Pakistan got their freedom, the long stretch of October 1947 saw monstrous conciliatory & military action in New Delhi, Karachi (at the point of capital of Pakistan) and Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu & Kashmir. At first Jammu & Kashmir ruler Hari Singh chose not to join either India or Pakistan and decided to stay free.
However, on 22 October 1947, a large number of equipped men supported by Pakistan military assaulted the state from the north constraining Singh to look for help from the Indian state and choosing to acquiesce to it. This prompted the marking of the ‘instrument of accession’ between Hari Singh and then prime minister Jawahar Lal Nehru on 26 October 1947. Under this instrument of accession, Jammu & Kashmir gave up just three subjects which were defence, external affairs and communication to the Indian state and earned a confirmation from India that the individuals of Jammu & Kashmir through their own constituent assembly would draft their own constitution (Article 370) and similarly Article 35A that empowered the Jammu & Kashmir state legislature to define permanent residents of the state and provide special right and privileges to those permanent residents. The Jammu & Kashmir reorganisation Bill 2019 has cleared the way for abolition of the Article 370 and Article 35A i.e. allow the path for people from anywhere in India be able to buy property and permanently settle in the state.
INTRODUCTION
The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Bill, 2019 meant to accommodate the revamping of the province of Jammu and Kashmir after the revocation of Article 370 and Article 35(A) into the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and Union Territory of Ladakh.
WHAT DOES THE BILL DO?
The bill accommodates the rearrangement of state into the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir with a law making body (Like Delhi and Puducherry), and (ii) the Union Territory of Ladakh without an assembly (like the other Union Territories). The Union Territory of Ladakh will involve Kargil and Leh regions. The Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir will have all the rest of the locale of the current province of Jammu and Kashmir. Both Union Territories will be managed by the President who will select a Lieutenant-Governor to administer the region for his sake. The Legislative Assembly of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir will be 107. Out of these 107 seats, 24 seats will stay empty (an occupied area in Pakistan occupied Kashmir). A different delimitation exercise will be done for the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir where decisions were expected in the not so distant future. There will be no voting public (state-level) in the Union Territory of Ladakh. Nonetheless, every one of the 6 Lok Sabha seats (3 in Kashmir, 2 in Jammu and 1 in Ladakh) will keep on existing till the following national delimitation work out. The UT of J&K will likewise have a Council of Ministers with a quality of at most extreme 10% the complete quality of chose individuals in the Assembly. The bill received the assent of the president on 9 August 2019, subsequent to which it was published in the Gazette of India.
IMPACT ON INDIA
With the new reform, the union territory of J&K and Ladakh would now be governed by the centre through Lt. governor. The issues related to public order, police, and trade & commerce were to be under the direct supervision of the centre. For Ladakh, it may be a welcome move as the region has suffered for the last seven decades due to neglect. The long reign of the 1954 order has ended for the new reform. The 1954 order had introduced the proviso to article 3 namely that no bill providing for expanding or lessening the area of the state of J&K or modifying the name or boundary of the state shall be introduced in parliament without the assent of legislature of the state. The ability of the state legislature ceases to exist with the removal of order 1954 & parliamentary laws including that of the reservation applying to Jammu & Kashmir as it does in other parts of the country. The move would be seen as end of “positive discrimination” and the closing of the “chasm” between the resident of Jammu & Kashmir and the citizen of other parts of the country. Doors have been now opened for private investment which in turn would increase the potential for development in J&K. Increase investment would lead to increase in job creation & further betterment of financial foundation in the state. Opening of the buying of land would bring in investment i.e. private investment and multinational company and will give a lift to the local economy.
There will be bookings for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, in Jammu and Kashmir, some portion of a more extensive plan of broadening national reservations and dynamic corrections material to the locale. For instance, the 2005 Hindu Succession Act alterations that gave ladies equivalent legacy rights as men, will currently apply. The limitations on the exchange of property under Section 139 of the J&K Transfer of Property Act are likewise gone at this point. All the inside’s grant plans will likewise be pertinent to the district. The accentuation on plans that touch singular recipients originates from the conviction that this will perceptibly affect the ground and feature the administration’s expectation to occupants, on the advancement front.
INTERNATIONAL REACTION
The majority of the worldwide network, except for China and Pakistan, had at first upheld India’s position on the J&K Reorganization Act, distinguishing it as an inward issue. Anyway a couple of months down the line, analysis started to mount as the state kept on encroaching upon the essential privileges of individuals to Internet and cell arrange availability. The web power outage which was forced in the district by the legislature in August proceeded to turn into the longest on record leaving individuals’ lives, employments, and the economy shredded.
There has additionally been across the board analysis of the legislature by International Rights associations over the lockdown in Kashmir and the house capture of standard political pioneers. Human rights association, Amnesty International, asked the administration to ease limitations on correspondence directs and the media in the state, and to discharge political pioneers. It further noticed that the SC’s refusal to pass any requests on lifting the limitations put in Jammu and Kashmir was a major hit to the individuals of the state. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC), without precedent for decades, additionally held a shut entryway meeting on Jammu and Kashmir on August 16, fourteen days after the Indian parliament casted a ballot to deny the uncommon self-ruling status gave to the state and to part the territory into two separate regions. Moreover the approval of this order was met with sharp criticism from the Pakistani government as it called the act another attempt of reorganizing the demographics of the single Muslim majority region in India by the “fascist Modi government”. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran khan also reacted by stating that the “new Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Order is a clear violation of the 4th Geneva Convention. People’s Republic of China On 31 October 2019, the Chinese Foreign ministry said that India’s decision to unilaterally change its domestic laws and administrative divisions is void, illegal and will not affect “the fact that the area is under Chinese actual control”.
CONCLUSION
The reorganisation of Jammu and Kashmir is an internal matter of India and is passed aiming at the development of the state of Jammu & Kashmir. This reorganisation does not affect either the international boundary or the line of control. The move is aimed at good governance that is to ensure socio-economic benefit that will go to the people of India also go to the citizens of Jammu and Kashmir. The idea of bifurcating the state into union territories is to ensure that development benefits go to the people. This move has nothing to deal with the international boundary. The Jammu and Kashmir reorganisation bill 2019 will improve the security situation with respect to cross-border terrorism and bring peace, harmony, stability in Jammu &Kashmir and in long run will be extremely beneficial for the people of Jammu and Kashmir without impacting its peculiar ethnicity.
This article is written by Abhishek Tiwari, 2nd Year Law Student At Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University.
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