New Delhi: The Union home ministry told the Jammu and Kashmir High Court that the lieutenant governor can nominate five members to the Union Territory’s Assembly without the ‘aid and advice ‘of its government.
The Legislative Assembly, having the strength of 119 members including 24 seats reserved for areas in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, went to polls in September and October in 90 constituencies, Scroll reported.
The lieutenant governor can appoint five members to represent the remaining five seats in the 95-member House where winning 48 seats means majority.
Two of those nominated including a woman should belong to the ‘community of Kashmiri migrants’ and one person is to be from the community of ‘displaced persons’ from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
In accordance with a provision carried over from the Constitution of the erstwhile state, the remaining two persons must be women.
The Centre reportedly told the court that nominating five members to the Assembly falls ‘outside the realm’ of the Jammu and Kashmir government.
It said: ‘Once Parliament bylaw recognises lieutenant governor as a distinct authority from the government of Union Territory … it necessarily follows that when a power is conferred upon the lieutenant governor, then the same must be exercised as a statutory function and not as an extension of his duties as the head of the UT government.’
Based on this, according to the Centre, the lieutenant governor can act without the ‘aid and advice’ of the government.
However, the lieutenant governor has yet to appoint any of the five nominated members to the Assembly.
The National Conference and the Opposition Peoples Democratic Party have come down heavily on the Centre’s statement with the former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti calling the Union government’s decision to nominate five members a ‘blatant subversion of democratic principles’.
‘Nowhere else in the country does the Centre handpick legislators to override the public mandate,’ Mufti was quoted as saying.