Srinagar, Dec 18 (KNS): The mainstream opposition parties and experts Sunday questioned the silence maintained by the State government over the Supreme Court (SC) verdict saying that J&K “has no vestige of sovereignty outside the Constitution of India.”
Noted legal luminaries and other experts said the SC’s decision vis-à-vis they SARFAESI Act, is not the true interpretation of Article 370.
Bar Association President, Mian Abdul Qayoom, while briefly explaining the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act (SARFAESI Act), 2002, told KNS that according to this Act those who take loans from banks and later fail to pay back, the banks can seize their property and auction it.
However in the case of J&K, which has a special status no outside bank can auction or sell the property to the outsider, which questions the Act in the state.
Noted lawyer, Advocate Zaffar Ahmad Qureshie said that the recent Supreme Court verdict is one sided.
Qureshie said that the facts were projected before the SC during the case was pleaded.
“I don’t think that the Advocate from the government side knows everything about the political issues. The government has remained tight-lipped over the issue. During the plea, the Advocate from the government side should have projected the facts before the bench,” he told KNS.
He said that for him, the judgement is one sided. “I don’t know whether it is intentionally or unintentionally but it is an attempt to erode Article 370 in the state. I believe that it is the suppression by the state government,” Advocate Qureshie said.
According to experts, no outsider, which means a non-state subject or even bank other than J&K Bank and other state owned banks, can auction or sell the property in J&K to any outsider, because of the two reasons-one J&K has a special status and second J&K has its own Transfer of Property Act.Click Here To Follow Our WhatsApp Channel
The political parties also lost no time to criticise the government for maintaining silence on it.
National Conference Working President and former chief minister Omar Abdullah said that the State Government’s weak legal defence of various sensitive attributes of the State’s Special Status was alarming.
Omar Abdullah, in a statement issued to KNS said, “The deliberate callousness shown by the State Government indicated the tacit connivance of PDP in allowing the step-by-step erosion of Article 370 through a series of politically patronized cases and litigation.”
Referring to the recent instance of bleak surrender by the State Government’s counsel in defending the position of the state viz-a-viz the SARFAESI Act, enacted by Parliament in 2002 and its implications on the State’s Special constitutional character, the National Conference Working President asked the PDP-BJP Government to come clean on its stand on this vital issue that could have far reaching implications for the State.
“Why did the State Government fail to come up with an appropriate and serious response considering the sensitivity of this issue and the importance of safeguarding the State’s political rights,” he questioned.
Congress state chief, G A Mir told KNS that it stands the responsibility of the present regime to come forward and talk over the issue. “If PDP had claimed to save the Article 370 in the state then they must have raised their voice against the decision,” he said.
He said that “I don’t know why the current regime is maintaining silence over the issue. The government is duty bound to come forward and talk over the issue.”
Mir said that the Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti should not watch such happenings as mute spectator and should break her silence to prove the claims her party had made. (KNS)