Article 35 A: SC adjourns hearing by 3 months

The Supreme court has adjourned hearing on a plea seeking to quash Article 35 A by three months.

A plea was filed in the SC seeking the scrapping of the article for the state as it is discriminatory in nature for women who are stripped off the right to own property if they marry someone from outside the state.

Petitioner Charu Wali Khanna, a Supreme Court lawyer and a native of Kashmir, stated: "Article 14 of Constitution gives a fundamental right to equality before law. But 35 A is heavily loaded in favour of males because even after marriage to women from outside they will not lose the right of being permanent residents.

A woman from outside the state shall became a permanent resident on marrying a male permanent resident of the state but a daughter who is born state subject will loss the right on marrying an outsider, the petitioner also contended.

What is Article 35 A:

Article 35A empowers the Jammu and Kashmir government to define "permanent residents" of the state and provide special rights and privileges to those permanent residents.

The article was added to the Indian Constitution through a Presidential order.

Prior to 1947, Jammu and Kashmir was a princely state under the British Paramountcy.

The people of the princely states were "state subjects", not British colonial subjects.

In the case of Jammu and Kashmir, the political movements in the state in the early 20th century led to the emergence of "hereditary state subject" as a political identity for the State's peoples, and the legal provisions for the recognition of the status were enacted by the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir between 1912 and 1932.

The 1927 Hereditary State Subject Order granted to the state subjects the right to government office and the right to land use and ownership, which were not available to non-state subjects.

Following the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to the Indian Union on 26 October 1947, The Maharaja ceded control over defence, external affairs and communications to the Government of India.

Article 370 of the Constitution of India and the concomitant Constitutional Order of 1950 formalised this relationship.

Discussions for furthering the relationship between the State and the Union continued, culminating in the 1952 Delhi Agreement, whereby the governments of the State and the Union agreed that Indian citizenship would be extended to all the residents of the state but the state would be empowered to legislate over the rights and privileges of the state subjects, who would now be called permanent residents.

OneIndia News