HC adjourns plea on applicability of presidential order 1954 to JK

Srinagar: Delhi High Court had adjourned for more than three months hearing on a plea, challenging the 1954 Presidential Order that prevents applicability of any amendment in the Constitution to the Jammu and Kashmir.

A division bench comprising acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar passed the orders after an adjournment slip was circulated with the consent of both sides.

On previous date of hearing, the bench had asked the petitioner—Surjeet Singh—to file written submission on maintainability of the petition.

The petitioner has challenged the 1954 Order that adds a proviso to Article 368 of the Constitution. The added proviso says: “no such amendment shall have effect in relation to the State of Jammu and Kashmir unless applied by order of the President under Clause (1) of Article 370.”

Article 370 grants special autonomous status to the state and makes it clear that any law, including constitution amendments, shall not be applicable to the state unless applied by an order of the President under this article.

The petition contends that the Constitution Order was an “encroachment” on the powers of the Parliament to amend the Constitution and apply it to Jammu and Kashmir.

“The impugned proviso added by ‘the Constitution Order 1954’ to the Article 368 is an unconstitutional encroachment on the constituent powers of Parliament to amend the Constitution and apply the same to the state of Jammu and Kashmir as well,” the petitioner says.

Singh also says that powers conferred on Parliament under Article 368 “in its very nature is one that cannot be delegated and the exclusive conferment of amending power on Parliament is one of the basic features of Constitution and cannot be violated directly or indirectly”.

Singh has sought quashing of the Constitution Order 1954 to the extent that it adds the proviso to Article 368.