Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Aug 23: High Court today adjourned the petition challenging J&K Reorganization Act, 2019 for September 4.
When the petition came up for hearing, Justice Rajesh Bindal observed, “the petitioner has challenged the J&K Reorganization Act, 2019 but the copy of same has not been placed in the record as such the petition is defective”.
On this, petitioner sought time to remove defect and High Court adjourned the matter with the direction to the Registry to list the matter on September 4, 2019.
In a petition filed by Advocate Shams Khawaja, it has been submitted that Union of India has recently rushed in legislation that purports to bifurcate the State of Jammu & Kashmir and furthermore downgrade the State into Union Territories.
“The legislation violates the Constitutional paradigm in terms of procedure, in terms of substantive law and in terms of jurisprudence as well”, the petitioner said, adding “legislation violates Article 3 of the Constitution of India, undermines the mandate inherent in Article 2 of the Constitution and sabotages the federal structuring that is a salient feature and basic to the structure of the Constitution itself”.
He further submitted that legislation disregards the framer’s intent, manifestly. “In enacting the legislation the respondents have exceeded competent jurisdiction”, the petitioner further submitted, adding “in enacting the legislation, the respondents have been very unfair to the Jammu region: this is nowhere to suggest that Kashmir or Ladakh regions have been treated duly and as per the admittedly stated ‘Statement of Reasons & Objects’ several parameters were noticed for mooring while devising the impugned legislation, namely sparsity of population in a given territory unit such as Ladakh, impact of strife in given regions and respective regions having international borders with not very harmonious quarters. Furthermore the realization of Right to Self-Determination was also effectively taken cognizance of and acted upon by the respondents selectively”.
“By not granting separate, independent of any other region ‘Statehood’, a long-standing lawful expectation of the people of Jammu has been belied”, the petitioner said, adding “entire exercise of enactment of the legislation (and by its implementation) the people of Jammu have been discriminated against by the respondents and their rights under Article 14 violated and by means of Presidential Order dated 5-8-19 i.e. the Constitution (Application to Jammu & Kashmir)Order, 2019, the respondents have illegal deprived the people of Jammu of their constitutionally recognized special status due to their bonding with the Union of India under special conditions and have thereby furthermore violated the rights under Article 14 and discriminated against them”.
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