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Article 35A comes up for hearing on May 14, plaintiffs question legality of Presidential Order
apex court clubs fresh case with old prayers on issue



Jammu, May 2, (Scoop News)-A fresh petition has been filed in the country’s Apex Court seeking annulment of Article 35A that guarantees special rights and privileges to the permanent residents of Jammu and Kashmir.

The Court, however, admitted it for hearing on May 14, after senior counsel Ranjit Kumar sought that the plaintiffs deserved some interim relief.

Petitioners Radhika Gill, Ekkalya and Vijay Kumar residents of Valmiki Colony near Gandhi Nagar in Jammu, the winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir, questioned the justification of Constitution (application to J&K) Order in 1954 on the ground that it infringed their right to life, right to equality of opportunity in public employment and right to reside and right to reside and settle in any part of India.

Having born and brought up in the state, they prayed that they had been invalidated of the right to seek admission in the state government funded professional institutions, right to job in the state government, right to own immovable property and right to franchise on the pretext that they were not permanent resident of Jammu and Kashmir.

They further prayed that these rejections proffered their lives inconsequential and went against the basic fundamental rights. They also demanded that the issue of Article 35A should be referred to a Constitution Benches.

The case came up for hearing before a Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India, Deepak Misra, which said the matter necessitated evaluation of constitutional provisions and should be put together with with other petitions on the issue.

The bench also issued instructions to the plaintiffs to serve a copy to the State and the Central governments.

Incorporated to the Constitution of India through a Presidential Order in 1954, the Article 35A entitles the permanent residents of Jammu and Kashmir to special rights and privileges and prevents the rest of Indians from owning immovable property, seeking jobs in the state government and settling down in the state, on the basis that the President could not have amended the constitution by an Order in 1954 and it was a temporary clause.

Earlier, the top court on October 30 deferred hearing on petitions questioning the viability of Article 35A in view of interlocution launched by the Centre with various stakeholders in the state. Attorney general KK Venugopal informed the court that the government had appointed a special representative and submitted it to defer the issue for couple of months.

The plaintiffs pleaded that the petition had been submitted on behalf of over 4,000 persons belonging to the second, third and even fourth generation of 272 Safai Karamcharies (sweepers) who moved from Gurdaspur and Amritsar and settled in Jammu way back in 1967 on the request of Jammu and Kashmir government to work as sweepers of the Jammu Municipal Corporations (JMC) who had gone on indefinite strike.

In view of political uncertainty prevailing in J&K over the alleged attempts to quash Article 35A, the Apex Court had on August 14, 2017 hinted at sending petitions challenging the controversial provisions to a Constitutional Bench for final conclusion.

Intriguingly, the Centre had been flinching from submitting its response to make its position clear its stand on Article 35A....
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