JAMMU: The noises made by the National Conference (NC), the Congress and some other parties during the past few days about restoration of Article 370 are completely meaningless. Any number of resolutions in the Legislative Assembly of Union Territory (UT) of Jammu & Kashmir cannot change the status quo regarding this article. This pernicious article has been permanently consigned to dustbin of history as it was repealed by Parliament over five years ago, BJP spokesperson Arun Gupta said here on Friday.
Originally, Article 370 was introduced and adopted as Article 306-A of the Indian Constitution on October 17, 1949. It was introduced as part of Article 306 and alphabet A was added to it as this was to be a temporary provision. It bears mention here that Article 306 was abrogated from the Constitution through seventh Constitutional Amendment in 1956, he said.
Oddly enough, the Article 370 (originally Article 306-A), which was a part of the abrogated Article 306, was not abrogated in 1956. This happened as it appears the Congress was careless in the drafting of 7th Constitutional Amendment, he said. A more careful drafting of this amendment would have led to automatic abrogation of Article 370, along with Article 306 itself in 1956, Mr Gupta added.
The Congress failure to abrogate Article 370 in 1956 caused immense harm to the nation, promoting a separatist, secessionist narrative in J&K, he said. Article 306 was introduced in the Constitution to ensure that trade and business relations between different states which had acceded to the Union of India were not adversely affected. This was a precautionary move aimed at ensuring a smooth transition, Mr Gupta said.
He pointed out that under Article 306, certain states under Part B were given the powers to restrict trade and commerce. Initially, when the country got independence in August 1947, over 550 Princely states had merged to form the Union of India, besides many areas directly ruled by the British. At that time, many states imposed taxes, duties or levies on movement of goods from one point to another, he pointed out.
Once all such areas became a part of India, the need and rationale of these taxes, duties and levies receded and then ceased altogether. As such, in less than a decade after 1947 (1956 as pointed out earlier), Article 306 had to be repealed. The repeal was part of the reorganization of states and territories in India, which reflected new political and administrative realities, Mr Gupta said.
The amendment that repealed Article 370 of the Constitution of India was the Constitution (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Order, 2019. Before that, between 1954 and 2019, at least 42 presidential orders were issued between that amended the Constitution (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Order, 1954 (C.O. 48). A very large number of these orders were passed during the tenure of the Congress governments at the Centre, he said.
The BJP government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi followed past precedents set by the Congress governments to repeal Article 370 and done nothing unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has also upheld the constitutional validity of its repeal and refused to term it as ultra vires as is claimed the NC-Congress combine government, Mr Gupta said.
The NC-Congress combine is misleading the masses by making false promises in the Legislative Assembly about restoration of Article 370. The fact is that the assembly has absolutely no powers to amend the Indian Constitution and bring back dead Article 370. The masses also need to understand their devious drive to push back J&K into an era of darkness as in the past, he concluded.
