Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Oct 4: Countering the contention that the Accession of Jammu & Kashmir with the Union of India is “conditional”, BJP National Executive Member & J&K chief spokesperson, Dr Jitendra Singh said here today, there is enough documentary evidence both from the Constitution of India as well as the Constitution of J&K to indicate that the accession of J&K is not conditional and that the Parliament of India has absolute jurisdiction over J&K.
Referring to J&K State constitution, Dr Jitendra Singh quoted Section (3) which said “the State of J&K is and shall be an integral part of the Union of India” while Section (5) said “the executive and legislative power of the State extends to all matters except those with respect to which Parliament has power to make laws for the State under the provisions of the Constitution of India”. Section (147) further provided that no bill or amendment be brought in seeking to make any change in (a) this Section or (b) provisions of Sections 3 and 5, he added.
Dr Jitendra Singh said, the Instrument of Accession, signed by Maharaja Hari Singh, was in no way different from the one signed by the princes of other 560-odd princely States. He further stated that those who say that in case of J&K, there was accession but no merger are actually not clear in their concept and went on to explain that “merger” applied to such erstwhile States, which merged with bigger States after independence , for example, some States merged with Punjab but the Instrument of Merger was not applied to bigger princely States like J&K, Mysore and so on.
According to Dr Jitendra Singh, in 1975,Sheikh Abdullah had himself facilitated further integration of J&K with the Union of India, and that is why, following the appointment of a three-member Cabinet Sub-Committee to look into the Central laws and institutions extended to the State after August 9, 1953,when there were two different reports received by him, one from D D Thakur which said that the Central laws had benefited the State and its people and the other from Ghulam Nabi Kochak which recommended withdrawal of all the Central laws, quite significantly Sheikh Abdullah decided to accept the Thakur report and rejected the Kochak report.
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel