Supreme Court has once again deferred the hearing of the petitions against Article 35A by three months. This has come as a great relief to the majority of the people in J&K who feared the worst. The apex court had initially agreed to defer the case by two months but later accepted Attorney General KK Venugopal’s request to put off the hearing at least to January. Incidentally, the reason pleaded for deferment of the case was the appointment of the new interlocutor for Kashmir.
If anything this means the case will go on, so there is little reason for the people of J&K to rejoice. For there is no telling how the court will choose to dispose off the case. The court judgements, as warned by the legal experts in the Valley, tend to be unpredictable. But the stakes in case of the Article 35A are too high to be left to perceived capriciousness of the court orders. The implications of an adverse judgement will be horrific. It threatens the fundamental underpinnings of the J&K identity.
Normally issues of such profound and far-reaching import shouldnt be there for the courts to decide. If the predominant majority of a place doesnt want a certain law to go as it is tied to the sense of their basic identity, no court should have the authority to alter or dilute it. For example, the courts cant choose the government of a country on behalf of a people. It is the inalienable right of the people to do so. Similarly, in case of Kashmir if people of a certain persuasion in the country want a law applicable to the state to go, they cant impose their will on the state by taking a legal route. It is tantamount to overriding the aspirations of the people of the state. Only legitimate way to embark on such an exercise is through ascertaining the will of the people. Let people of J&K decide through a vote whether they want to continue with the Article 35A or give it up.
Having said that it is pertinent to highlight here that despite the assurance offered by no less than the home minister Rajnath Singh, the centre is yet to formally defend the law in the court. So far, central government has shied away from doing so. Instead the Attorney General of India K K Venugopal has already told the court that the government wants a larger debate on the law, an observation that triggered alarm bells in Kashmir. Kashmir saw it as a signal that New Delhi was open to tinkering with the law which enables state government to define state subject law and forbids outsiders from settling in the state. Therefore it is still what the centre does in practice about Article 35A that remains the touchstone about the professed sincerity of its words. People now expect the words to be matched by the deed. There is now once again going to be a build-up of the public anxiety as the date for the next hearing nears. But centre can certainly put a stop to it by offering to stand for the law.
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