New Delhi: Accepting the Centre and the Jammu and Kashmir government’s concerns over law and order, the Supreme Court on Friday deferred till January next year the crucial hearing on pleas challenging the constitutional validity of Article 35A, which provides special rights and privileges to permanent residents of the state. The petitions have sparked anger in the Kashmir Valley where protesters have described them as attempts to tinker with their identity.
A bench, headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, was informed by the Centre and the state government that polls to local bodies in the state would go on till Dec-ember, therefore, the next hearing should be scheduled in January or March.
The bench, including Justices A.M. Kanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud, accepted the submissions of attorney-general K.K. Venugopal and additional solicitor general Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Jammu and Kashmir government, that any debate and discussion on Article 35A during local body polls would have repercussions on the law and order in the state.
The bench observed, “Let the elections take place. We are told there is law and order problem. List the petitions for hearing in the second week of January 2019.”
Justice Chandrachud said, “The court would not want to precipitate the matter ahead of the local body polls.”
The ASG said that if the local body polls are not held by December for the Rs 4,335 crore released by the finance commission for projects would lapse.
Mr Venugopal said that the hearing of this case at a time when elections are underway could have serious implications on the law and order situation.
The plea for putting off the hearing was vehemently opposed by senior advocate Ranjit Kumar and lawyer Barun Kumar Sinha, representing petitioner NGO We the
Citizens and advocate Ankur Sharma, who said that the law and order aspect cannot be referred to as the reason for stalling the hearing of a constitutional issue before the apex court.
When senior counsel Ranjit Kumar insisted on an urgent hearing, the CJI told him, “The Article 35A was inserted in the Constitution in 1954 and you are approaching the court after 60 years. What is the hurry now?”
The bench said it cannot refer the matter to a Constitution Bench without examining the matter.
The bench was hearing a bunch of petitions in the matter, including the one filed by We the Citizens and Charu Wali Khanna, seeking the quashing of Article 35A.
The Article denies property rights to women who marry those from outside the state. The provision, which leads to such women from the state forfeiting their right over property, also applies to their heirs.
The Article was incorporated in the Constitution in 1954 by an order of President Rajendra Prasad on the advice of the then Cabinet headed by Jawaharlal Nehru.
In an earlier hearing, the state government, while defending the Article, had cited two verdicts of Constitution Benches of the Supreme Court in 1961 and 1969, which had upheld the powers of the President under Article 370(1)(d) of the Constitution to pass constitutional orders.
