J&K Governor urged not tsign the legislation

Chennai, Feb 13 (UNI) Opposing the unanimous adoption of Shariat as a source of civil law in the state by the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly, Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy today urged State Governor not to sign the legislation which was an ''outrageous assault on the secular order of the nation''.

The constitutional minimum in the concept of basic structure was that no Legislature or Parliament could amend the Indian constitutional provisions that altered the core including Democracy, Republicanism and Secularism, he said in a statement here.

The constitutional minimum overrides any protection from Article 370 of the Constitution, he added.

Mr Swamy accused the Congress and the People's Democratic Party of ''capitulating'' before the Private Member's Bill that introduced the legislation and by extending support for its unanimous passage in the Jammu and Kashmir Legislature.

Taking exception to reported remarks of Uttar Pradesh Governor against Sanskrit, he said the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the United States had held in its official journal 'Artificial Intelligence' that Sanskrit was the best language for storing knowledge in a computer.

UNI