NEW DELHI, Oct 14: The Supreme Court on Monday declined to consider a petition challenging the Lieutenant Governor’s (LG’s) authority to nominate five members to the J&K Legislative Assembly.
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“They may nominate, may not nominate… we don’t know. Go to the High Court. Not everything has to come to this court directly,” a Bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Sanjay Kumar told senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi.
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Singhvi represented the petitioner, Ravinder Kumar Sharma, senior Congress leader and ex MLC, who contested Sections 15, 15A and 15B of the J&K Reorganisation Act, 2019. These provisions authorise the LG to nominate five members to the Assembly, potentially altering the elected body’s composition.
Singhvi, assisted by senior advocate Sunil Fernandes, sought to highlight the gravity of the issue, arguing it is related to the basic structure of the Constitution as far as a threat to electoral mandate is concerned.
“Suppose I have a strength of 48 in the 90-member Assembly. That’s three above the majority mark. If the LG nominates five MLAs, the other side can become 47 and it boils down to just one member. You can completely frustrate the electoral mandate by using this power… what if they decided to raise the nomination from five to ten in the future,” Singhvi contended.
But the bench retorted, “One, they have not done it so far. Second, they are expected to have some reasons why these provisions are there. Let the High Court examine all this… also, this petition appears to have been filed before the election results were announced,” it told the senior lawyers.
In its brief order, the bench recorded. “We are not inclined to entertain this petition under Article 32 of the Constitution (writ jurisdiction). We leave the petitioner with liberty to move the jurisdictional High Court under Article 226 (writ).”
At this point, Singhvi said that he should be allowed to come back if something drastic happens. Responding, the bench said: “It hasn’t happened yet, and we may also say that it should not happen.”
Section 15 of the J&K Reorganisation Act empowers the LG to nominate five members to the Assembly. These include two women; two Kashmiri migrants one of whom should be a woman (Section 15 A) and one person to be nominated from those displaced from Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir (Section 15 B).
In his writ petition, Sharma contended that the LG’s nomination power threatens the Assembly’s democratic structure by potentially altering its composition and influencing the majority.
According to Sharma, the LG’s declaration to nominate members after the elections but before the formation of a Government reflects a motive to influence the Assembly’s composition. The nominations, the plea claimed, would increase the Assembly’s strength from 90 to 95 members, potentially impacting the balance of power. The petition argued that this move undermines the results of the recent elections, wherein the NC and its allies have already secured a clear majority. (Agencies)
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