Cong's Ravinder Sharma questions LG's powers to nominate five MLAs in J&K Assembly

Jammu, Oct 14 (IANS) Senior Congress leader Ravinder Sharma on Monday questioned Centre’s move to empower the Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor (LG) in nominating five members in the Assembly and said that this amounts to infringing upon the democratic rights of people. 

Ravinder Sharma, also the party’s chief spokesperson in Jammu and Kashmir said, "The elections were held on 90 seats and now there are nominated five MLAs. I think this process is wrong. However, we have discussed it and I filed a petition in the Supreme Court so that we can know who has the authority to nominate and is it possible to do this."

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has refused to entertain a petition against the J&K Lieutenant Governor's (LG) powers to nominate five members in the Assembly.

"We wanted to know if is it justified to nominate MLAs. Do the Central government have the right to do this? Or they should take the advice of the elected government in J&K. Suppose, there is an Assembly of 114 and you nominate five more, then where they will sit and what they will do? For this reason, we had challenged this process in which the Supreme Court has told us to approach the J&K High Court," he added.

He further said that the Apex court has assured them of intervention, if the issue remains unresolved. 

"They have not dismissed our plea and said if they accept then you can come to the Supreme Court again," he said.

Notably, the clause of nomination of five members in Assembly was introduced in the J&K Reorganisation Act passed on August 5, 2019, which revoked the special status granted to the erstwhile state under Article 370, a move affirmed by the Supreme Court in December 2023.

According to the Section 15 of the J&K Reorganisation Act, the L-G is empowered to nominate five members to the assembly. These include two women; two Kashmiri migrants one of whom should be a woman (Section 15 A) and one person to be nominated from those displaced from Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir (Section 15 B).

In the recently held J&K elections, the National Conference (NC)-Congress in J&K secured an absolute majority by winning 48 out of 90 Assembly seats in the union territory.