Author: Our Legal Correspondent
Publication: The Telegraph
Date: November 12, 2002
URL: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1021112/asp/nation/story_1376911.asp
The Jammu and Kashmir Resettlement
of Migrants Act was today rendered virtually inoperable with the Supreme
Court continuing the stay on it.
The Act enables all migrants to
Pakistan to come back and resettle in the state.
Enacted in 1982, the law was in
the thick of discussion recently after the National Conference government
led by Farooq Abdullah announced that it would be implemented.
A three-judge bench of Chief Justice
G.B. Pattanaik, Justices K.G. Balakrishnan and S.B. Sinha today ordered
that the interim stay on the operation of the law granted in February would
continue.
The bench was hearing a public interest
litigation by Panthers Party president Bhim Singh, who had the Act.
Singh contended that the Act would
facilitate the entry of ISI-trained terrorists to the state and the Act
itself was unconstitutional as it threatened the unity and integrity of
the country.
Under the Act, any person from Pakistan
could claim to be a migrant and thereafter claim all legal rights as a
citizen. In fact, migrants resettling in the state would become citizens
of the state, the petition said.
The Act was actually returned in
1982 by then state Governor B.K. Nehru and a presidential reference to
the Supreme Court was also returned unanswered by the court in November
last year.
The state government took a decision
that it would implement the Act.
Singh said the Act would pave the
way for more than two lakh Pakistanis, including the heirs of those who
were actually born in Pakistan and youngsters trained in arms by both Pakistan
and the Taliban, to penetrate into the state.
The Panthers Party chief contended
that even the Hindu-dominated Jammu region would be infiltrated by the
migrants, including people trained in arms.
The Centre also supported the petitioner
holding that the Act would jeopardise national security and public order
not only in the state but also throughout the country.
In an affidavit, the Central government
said: "The Act purports to enable even persons who have voluntarily migrated
to Pakistan with the partition of the country."
It said persons who have taken Pakistani
citizenship and have become citizens of that country for at least two to
three generations could also come back to "resettle" and quite a few of
them could even be the ones who have fought against India in the past two
or three wars.
The Centre's affidavit also pointed
out that the law did not make any provision to verify the antecedents of
the migrants wanting resettlement in Jammu and Kashmir.
The affidavit added that once a
person had taken the citizenship of another country, he or she could not
claim citizenship in India as a legal or birthright.
A law relating to this aspect could
be enacted only by the Central government in Parliament and a state government
could not enact such a law, it said.
