SC defers Article 35A hearing by 8 weeks as Kashmir Valley waits anxiously 

While the Supreme Court deferred the hearing of pleas against Article 35A by eight weeks, people in the Valley were watching the developments keenly with separatist leaders threatening to launch a massive agitation in case the Article was removed.

The principal petition, filed by the RSS-backed non-governmental organisation, We the Citizens, demanding the abrogation of Article 35A, was listed for hearing before the apex court on Monday. Three other pleas challenging the 63-year-old law had also been filed.

Added through the constitutional order of 1954, the provision allows the state legislature to define permanent residents of state.

In a statement issued on Sunday, separatist leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohmmmad Yasin Malik threatened mass agitation if the apex court delivered a verdict against the interests and aspirations of the people of the state.

Deeming the scrapping of Article 35A as a sheer conspiracy, the separatist leaders said that any tinkering with the law would pave the way for citizens of other states of India to purchase land in Jammu and Kashmir that would change the demography of Jammu and Kashmir.

The state of Jammu and Kashmir has already filed its response before the apex court. The government in its response has questioned the legal points raised by the petitioner. The state government argued that the court had already considered and rejected such pettitions in 1961 and 1970, in the cases of Puranlal Lakhanpal Vs President of India and Sampat Prakash Vs State of Jammu and Kashmir respectively.

“Mehbooba Mufti is trying to implement the saffron agenda in the state. Ever since she stitched an alliance with BJP, she has furthered their political interests in the state. Any tinkering with article 35A will prove political suicide for her and she will have to fold up her tents once and for all from the Valley,” said Nazir Ahmad Wani, a resident of Srinagar who has been eagerly waiting for the verdict since morning.

Political observers in the Valley believe that scrapping of Article 35A or any amendment to it would prove disastrous for the Government of India.

“Successive governments, time and again, have eroded Article 370. I see Article 35A as sole remnant of the conditions on which the state of Jammu and Kashmir had acceded to the Union of India. Now if even that is scrapped, its accession to India would naturally terminate,” said Dr Shahnawaz Mantoo, a Valley- based political analyst. “In such a case, the Valley will witness an intifada that definitely could be very hard to contain,” Mantoo added.