Why political parties never challenged Article 249 extended to J&K in July 1986?
SRINAGAR, MARCH 02: There is no dispute in Jammu and Kashmir regarding granting reservation in promotions for the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes and reservation for economically-weaker sections of the society and nobody is against it. However, the concurrence for extending these amendments was given by the governor Satya Pal Malik, the government of India’s own nominee, after the state administrative council (SAC) approved the proposal earlier this month. The governor administration doesn’t have moral or political authority to take such constitutional decisions.
Such decisions should have been left to the elected representatives who have the mandate of people. The mandate to take constitutional decision lies with the state Assembly. There is already lot of mistrust and chaos in the state and such decisions taken by the Governor administration won’t have positive impact on the overall situation.
Isn’t it a reality that extensive autonomy guaranteed by the constituent assembly of India to J&K under Article 370, has been sufficiently eroded and made hollow? The extent of the misuse of Article 370 itself to encroach on the State’s powers can be seen from one of the measures taken in July 1986. The President of India made an order under Article 370 extending to the state Article 249 of the Constitution in order to empower Parliament to legislate on a matter in the state list on the strength of a Rajya Sabha resolution.
This sort of overriding the state’s list can’t be done with regard to other states. At any rate issuing constitution (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) amendment order while there is no elected government for state of Jammu and Kashmir in office is totally undemocratic and against letter and spirit of article 370. This is part of systematic approach of the Union government for diluting the autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir state under the constitution. By passing successive orders they have made Article 370 an empty shell only.
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