Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Mar 23: Division Bench of High Court today upheld the order of Writ Court wherein Government was directed not to make any appointment of migrants or any Kashmiri Pandit under SRO 425 made under the Prime Minister’s Special Package for rehabilitation of Kashmiri migrants.
Division Bench said the Writ Court has passed the ad interim order, which is subject to objections of the other side with a further stipulation that it shall be valid till next date of hearing only as such did not interfere with the same.
DB said the impugned order is an interlocutory order and ordinarily the bench which is hearing the LPA, does not interfere with such an order except in cases which are exceptional in nature and content.
“The proper course to be adopted, as a precedent, is to avoid entertaining such appeals at such a stage”, read the DB order.
The contention of the appellants (Kashmiri Pandits) in the LPA was that SRO 425 and Government order dated 13.11.2017 were issued by the State Government in their favour by extending Prime Minister’s Package for Relief and Rehabilitation (Jobs) to them, who stayed back in the Kashmir valley and continued to live there through all thick and thin and harsh conditions of threat to their lives and property. It has further been pleaded that the petitioners (Sikh community) in their petition have willfully and with malafide intentions, failed to make the appellants or their representative party as respondents to the said petition filed by them and have deliberately mislead the Court to obtain the order impugned, in the appeal, which directly affects their status and position.
The writ Court, it may be mentioned here in terms of order which has been challenged in LPA directed “…Meanwhile as ad interim, subject to objections and till next date before the bench, no appointment in terms of SRO 425 and impugned order 13.11.17 shall be finalized and made…”
The counsel representing the Sikh community has stated that the application of the SRO and Government order should have been extended to all the migrants, irrespective of their caste, creed and color and to carve out a class within a class for the extension of any benefit is not permissible under law.
Referring the citation of a judgment, DB said the aggrieved party can seek modification, alteration or vacation of the order or dismissal of the writ petition on the permissible legal grounds.
Counsel appearing for Sikh Community stated before the Court that he has no objection in case the appellants are impleaded as party respondents to the writ petition. “In this backdrop, the appellants are directed to be impleaded as party respondents in the writ petition and they shall, therefore, figure at 2- 202 in the array of respondents. All respondents to the writ petition including the newly added respondents-appellants shall file their reply to the writ petition within three weeks”, DB directed.
DB further added that the newly added respondents shall also be at liberty to file the application seeking modification/alteration/vacation of the impugned order 14.12.2017, passed by the writ court. “We make it clear that we have not expressed any opinion in the matter”, DB recorded.
The Kashmiri Sikh community has challenged the SRO and the Government order dated 13.11.2017 whereby a Committee has been constituted by the Government for giving benefit in terms of the said SRO to the migrants as also to Kashmiri Pandits on the ground that the said SRO offends Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India and the fundamental right of equality of unemployed educated youth of the petitioner-community, who too have not left the Valley after 1989.
It is under Kashmiri Migrants (Special Drive) Recruitment Rules, 2009, that “migrant” unemployed youth are eligible for appointment against the posts specially created from time to time in Kashmir Division, except the districts of Leh and Kargil under the Prime Minister’s Special Package for return and rehabilitation of Kashmiri migrants to the Valley.
Follow our WhatsApp channel