SRINAGAR: CPI (M) leader Mohamad Yousuf Tarigami while questioning the passage of recent bills in the parliament said that approval of Amendment Bills at this stage appears to be in sharp contrast to democratic and judicial practices.
“The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Amendment Bill) was passed at a time when the Reorganisation Act itself is under judicial scrutiny and the Apex court has heard the arguments from petitioners and the government, while the judgement is yet to be delivered,” he said.
It has become a standard practice of the current dispensation to take undemocratic and unconstitutional decisions, he added.
Tarigami said that Jammu and Kashmir Reservation (Amendment) Bill, 2023 is replacing terms like “weak and underprivileged classes” with “other backward classes” which seems merely a linguistic revision.
“The Jammu and Kashmir government had already passed the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation Act, 2004. The Act provided for reservations in recruitments and admission in professional colleges to the members of Schedule Casts, Schedule Tribes and other socially and educationally backward classes,” he said.
He stated that the nomination of two members from the Kashmiri Pandit community to the Legislative Assembly reeks of the current dispensation’s intentions of never rehabilitating them in their native places. “The members from the community like D P Dhar, Pyari Lal Hindoo, Manohar Lal Koul and others had contested elections and were elected to the Assembly in the past.”
He confirmed that the power to nominate the members should rest with the elected government and not to any un-elected authority.
