Srinagar, Dec 2:
The Jammu and Kashmir Congress and People’s Conference on Sunday said any changes in the procedure for granting permanent residence certificates (PRCs) in the state would be “unacceptable”. Earlier, senior BJP leader Kavinder Gupta had said the state administration was thinking about simplifying the procedure to grant PRCs and a timeline should be fixed for its issuance under the Public Services Guarantee Act. The National Conference, one of the state’s major political parties, had also said earlier that it will oppose any move aimed at changing the procedure.
“Any changes to the PRC (rules) are unacceptable to the Congress party,” a party spokesperson said here. The Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee warned that any changes to the PRC rules would not be in the state’s interest and would have serious implications. “This step will invent another problem in the state which has to be avoided in the larger interests of peace,” the Congress spokesperson said. He said as the state legislative assembly has been dissolved, the governor-led administration “has no mandate to interfere in the constitutional matters of the state”. People’s Conference chief Sajad Lone also said the administration should restrict itself to basic governance. “The governor administration needs to restrict itself to basic governance. No structural changes pertaining to PRC or J&K Bank are acceptable. Restrict your energies to what u r (you are) mandated to do — which incidentally u r (you are) not doing. Please don’t invent new problems,” he wrote on Twitter. Article 35A of the Constitution empowers the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly to define ‘permanent residents’ of the state who are eligible for special rights and privileges, which the legislature can provide.
The Supreme Court is currently hearing a bunch of petitions seeking abrogation of the legislation, which was added by a presidential order in 1954 through Article 370 of the Constitution.
