Kashmir witnesses political furore over Article 35A and GST
The Centre has so far not filed a counter affidavit to an NGO’s writ petition in the SC questioning Article 35A.
contended that the “presidential order” safeguards the special status of the state.
Senior Cabinet minister Nayeem Akhtar of the PDP called the extension of GST into J&K as the biggest internal Confidence Building Measure from the Centre. He dismissed the contentions of the Opposition, reminding them of two riders—first, the J&K government’s concurrence is mandatory for any decision taken by the GST Council that impinges on the constitutional provisions relating to the state, and second, J&K’s power to legislate under Section 5 of the Constitution of J&K is unaffected. He added that earlier there had been 47 such presidential orders but none of them contained such explicit safeguards for the special status of J&K.
The Lok Sabha passed two bills extending Central GST and Integrated GST to J&K, with Finance Minister Arun Jaitely advocating the same on the ground that it would economically integrate the state to the rest of India.
Earlier, the J&K Assembly passed the J&K Goods and Services Tax Act 2017, which came into force on 8 July.
Meanwhile, J&K Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti asked the Central government not to tinker with Article 35(A). She warned the Centre that there would not be anybody to hoist the Tricolour in Kashmir in that eventuality.
Article 35(A) empowers J& K legislators to define permit residence of the state and was added to Article 35 through a Presidential order called the Constitution Order, 1954, issued under Article 370.
The BJP in its Assembly election manifesto had promised that it would give voting rights to all the settlers in Jammu and would also give land at cheap rates to retired Army officials in all the major towns of J&K.
The National Conference has accused the PDP of encouraging the Central government to take steps that would erode J&K’s special status. The five southern states—Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala—accounted for more than 50% of the total cases that have been filed in India in 2015 for promoting enmity between different groups.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau data, 419 cases of promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, place of birth, etc (Sec 153A of the IPC) and imputation and assertions prejudicial to national integration (Sec 153B of IPC) were filed in different police stations across the 29 states in 2015. These two sections, according to legal experts, give a fair idea of the incidents of lynching, vigilantism and mob attacks in a particular state.
Telangana topped the list with 53 cases, followed by Andhra Pradesh (49), Karnataka (46), Tamil Nadu (41) and Kerala (36). The number of cases lodged in the southern states add up to 225. Uttar Pradesh saw the maximum number of FIRs— 60—being filed under these two Sections with the majority of them (51) being filed under Section 153A followed by Maharashtra (35) and Rajasthan (23).
In 2014, the maximum number of such cases was reported from Kerala and Karnataka. Kerala saw the most number of cases (65) being filed, followed by Karnataka (46),Rajasthan (39), Maharastra (33) and Uttar Pradesh (26). A total 318 cases were filed in the various states under this section that year.
The states of Chhattisgarh, Goa, Tripura, Jammu and Kashmir, Tripura, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland saw zero cases being registered under these sections, followed closely by Assam (1) and Bihar (1). Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Punjab, Sikkim and Tripura saw zero cases registered in 2014 whereas Goa, Manipur and Mizoram saw only one case registered under these sections in 2014.