Jammu and Kashmir should retain special status, panel says
Team tasked with getting views of the people
New Delhi: A constitutional committee should review all central laws extended to Jammu and Kashmir and make permanent article 370 of the constitution that grants the state special status, a three-member team of interlocutors led by journalist Dileep Padgaonkar has recommended. The panel had been tasked with ascertaining the views of the people on resolving the Kashmir issue.
In its report, submitted to Home Minister P. Chidambaram in October 2011 and made public yesterday, the interlocutors also noted that there was consensus in the border state that its distinctive status guaranteed by article 370 must be upheld. The report also said its erosion over the decades must be re-appraised to vest it with such powers as the state needs to promote the people's welfare on its own terms.
"To build on the consensus, we recommend that a constitutional committee be set up to review all central acts and articles of the constitution of India extended to the state after signing of the 1952 agreement," the interlocutors said in their 180-page report that called for a "new compact" with the state's people.
Terms of engagement
"It will bear in mind the dual character of Jammu and Kashmir, viz, that it is a constituent unit of the Indian Union and that it enjoys a special status in the said Union, enshrined in article 370 of the constitution; and the dual character of the people of the state, viz. that they are both state subjects and Indian citizens," it said.
The 1952 agreement lays down the terms of engagement between the central government and the Kashmir government.
The other members of the interlocutors panel were academicians M.M. Ansari and Radha Kumar.
The panel wants the constitutional committee to be headed by an eminent personality who enjoys the esteem of the state's and the nation's people, and it should include constitutional experts as members. The committee should submit its report within six months and this will be binding on all stake-holders in Kashmir, the report said.
On article 370, the panel said: "Delete the word ‘Temporary' from the heading of Article 370 and from the title of Part XXII of the Constitution and replace it with ‘Special' as has been used for other states under other Articles for Maharashtra, Gujarat, Sikkim and northeast." However, the interlocutors held that there was consensus in Jammu and Kashmir on it continuing to function ‘as a single entity' within Indian Union.
Soon after the report was made public, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah tweeted that he ‘will not be reacting' to it for the time being.
Padgaonkar, though, said he hoped the report will lead to an informed debate on the issues touched by the interlocutors, all across the country, including in Jammu and Kashmir.
