Review the central laws in J&K : Interlocutors

The report submitted by the group of interlocutors  to the union Home Minister on Jammu and Kashmir has called for a review of all the central laws and articles of the Indian Constitution applicable to the state after 1952. The pro-separatist organizations sees these laws responsible for diluting the Jammu and Kashmir’s special status under Article 370, which limited the Centre’s authority in the state to the three subjects of defence, communications and the currency. The report has also proposes replacement of the word “temporary” from the heading of Article 370  with the word “Special” thereby seeking to make it permanent.

However, a review of the application of Central laws to the state after 1952, which also formed the basis for 1974 Indira-Sheikh accord, is a radical proposal with a potential to redraw the Centre-state relationship. Interlocutors also recommended the establishment of a Constitutional Committee that will look for laws that curtail the state’s special status and recommend their withdrawal after assessing powers that J&K needs “to address the political, economic, social and cultural interests and aspirations of the people in all the regions, sub-regions and communities of the state”. The Committee will take all stakeholders on board before reaching a decision. Subsequently, the President, exercising powers under clause 1 and 3 of Article 370, shall issue an order incorporating the recommendations in the Constitution. The presidential order shall then be ratified as a Bill by the state Assembly and both houses of Parliament with two-thirds majority.

The interlocutors further suggested that the state government should have a say in the appointment of the Governor, a demand of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in its self-rule document. The report proposes that the state government, after consulting opposition parties, shall submit a list of three names for the post of Governor to the President. Another point incorporated from the self-rule document is reduction in the number of Indian Administrative Service officers in the state and intake of more officers from the state services.

The report also makes room for Pakistan’s involvement in the process at a later stage after a consensus on a specific settlement is reached. Once the Committee’s recommendations are finalized and the separatists in the Valley also come on board, authorities in Pakistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir could be involved to hammer out a solution.  The panel of interlocutors led by noted journalist Dileep Padgaonkar, and including academician Radha Kumar and former Information Commissioner MM Ansari, has also stressed the right of Kashmiris to move across the Line of Control (LoC) in pursuit of socio-economic and cultural objectives and called for making the LoC “irrelevant, a mere line on a map”.Panel of interlocutors have also highlighted the problems being faced by the militancy affected people of Jammu region, demands of PoK refugees, West Pakistani refugees, discrimination with Jammu and Ladakh, migrants of Jammu region and inter district recruitment ban in the state.