Tension brews in J& K over Article 35A
Separatist leaders call for a 2- day shutdown in Valley from Aug. 5 ahead of SC hearing
Tension is brewing in Kashmir ahead of Supreme Court resuming hearing on Article 35A of the Indian Constitution.
While “Joint Resistance Leadership” ( JRL), the alliance of key separatist leaders has called for a two- day shutdown in the Valley from August 5 and asked the people to get ready for “hitting and occupying the streets in a fierce long- drawn battle if any tinkering with 35A is allowed to take place under a legal garb”, the Kashmir Inc has pledged to protect Article 35A “with blood”.
As many as 27 trade and industry bodies have joined hands to fight the “battle” alongside JRL, which has Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik on it. “We’re ready to face bullets in order to protect the special status of J& K. It will be an all out war if Article 35A is done away with,” said Kashmir Traders and Manufacturers Forum president, Muhammad Yasin Khan. He added, “It is a matter of life and death for us.”
A three- bench of the SC is scheduled to resume hearing on a petition seeking removal of Article 35A on August 6. The petition filed by an NGO, We the Citizens, believed to be an RSS think- tank, in 2014 challenges 35A on grounds that it was not added to the Constitution through amendment under Article 368 and that it was never presented before Parliament, and came into effect immediately.
Article 35A empowers the J& K Legislature to define “permanent residents” of the state and provide special rights and privileges to those permanent residents. It was added to the Constitution through a Presidential Order in 1954 issued by the then President in exercise of the powers conferred by Clause ( 1) of Article 370 of the Constitution, with the concurrence of the government of the state of J& K. Article 370 guarantees a special status to J& K within the Indian Union.
In another case filed in the SC in July last year, two Kashmiri women argued that the state’s laws, flowing from Article 35A, had disenfranchised their children. The SC is also hearing yet another plea challenging the validity of Article 370, which guarantees special status to J& K. The petition challenged the April 11, 2017, order of the Delhi high court rejecting a plea saying nothing survives in it as the apex court has already dismissed a similar prayer on the issue. The SC has clubbed all these petitions and will hear the case on August 6.