Srinagar: Amid periodic controversy over the abrogation of article 370, which gives special status to conflict ravaged state of Jammu and Kashmir within the Indian union, legal luminaries and academicians say if Article 370 is abrogated, the United Nations (UN) resolutions will become automatically applicable on Jammu and Kashmir.
“Abrogating article 370 will pave way to implement the UN resolutions in Kashmir, because this article connects Kashmir with Indian Union. If it is removed India will be having no constitutional right to claim Kashmir anymore,” said valley’s well known legal luminary.
“It will open all the Pandora boxes of Kashmir’s accession with India,” he said.
A group of advocates said that the Article 370 can neither be abrogated not it can be strengthened.
“We can only restore its erosions and for that we don’t have to deal with it constitutionally. All the erosions of this article are political in nature and can be restored politically,” they said and added that there are also some United Nations resolutions that restrict any fiddling with this article.
They said only the constituent assembly of 1951 can abrogate or strengthen this article. The Constituent Assembly of 1951 was a body of 75 representatives elected in 1951 to write the constitution of Jammu and Kashmir.
The academicians also say if New Delhi starts process on abrogation of Article 370, it would open a Pandora’s Box of fishy deals and the ‘accession’ of Jammu and Kashmir to India would also come under question.
In 1951, Sheikh Abdullah as the prime minister of J&K had for the first time addressed the assembly and called on it (constituent assembly) to frame the states constitution. On February 15, 1954 the assembly members who were present cast a unanimous vote ratifying the state’s accession to India. Constitution was drafted which came into force on January 26, 1957.
The controversy over article 370 has triggered after Jitendra Singh, the rightwing Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP)’s Member of Parliament from Udhampur and Minister of State (MoS) in Narendra Modi-led government at New Delhi had stated the process of repealing Article 370 has started.
The article 370 specifies that except for Defence, Foreign Affairs, Communications and ancillary matters (matters specified in the instrument of accession) the Indian Parliament needs the State Government’s concurrence for applying all other laws. This gives the state’s residents to live under a separate set of laws, including those related to citizenship, ownership of property, and fundamental rights, as compared to other Indians. (PTK)