The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain a demand by a former official of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) to represent Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) areas in the Lok Sabha.
For this purpose, the petition demanded at least two Parliamentary seats to be earmarked in the PoK, Gilgit and Baltistan provinces. The Court dismissed the petition with a fine of Rs 50,000 to be paid within four weeks.
Though this issue has engaged the attention of the Parliament twice, this was the first time the matter came up in the top court.
Arguing the matter through lawyer Binu Tamta, the ex-RAW officer, RK Yadav, submitted that this issue concerned the sovereignty of India. At present, there are 24 Assembly constituencies earmarked under the PoK and Gilgit-Baltistan, out of the 111-seat strong Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly. But these seats have remained vacant as Assembly elections in J&K are held on the remaining 87 seats.
Yadav's counsel argued that when the J&K Constitution has earmarked 24 seats in the PoK territory, the apex court should consider bringing this territory under the rule of the Constitution of India and carve out minimum two Parliamentary seats in the region.
The petitioner proposed that the PoK could be demarcated into two LS seats – Muzaffarabad (with 10 districts under it) and Gilgit-Baltistan (with nine districts). The petition stated, "Since both Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan were part of erstwhile J&K territory (till they were illegally taken away by Pakistan and China), India should bring these regions under its Constitutional obligation."
Almost 78,114 sqkm of the original J&K is under Pakistan, of which China occupies over 42,000-odd sqkm.
On hearing this suggestion, the bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose asked, "What is your interest in filing this petition?" The lawyer answered that having served the country through RAW, the petitioner's sole interest is to serve national interest through this petition.
The bench said, "Ex facie, the prayers are not tenable and not appropriate for judicial interpretation."
After imposing costs with the petition, the Court directed the former RAW officer to deposit the money with the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee. Yadav sought waiver of the cost and proposed to withdraw the petition.
According to him, he only espoused a demand earlier raised in Parliament. On November 26, 2014, BJP MP Nishikant Dubey from Godda (Jharkhand) introduced a bill in Lok Sabha for carving out Parliamentary seats in PoK.
The same was dropped in the Winter Session of Parliament that year. A similar bill was tabled even in October 2013, but got nixed. It was following this, that the petitioner moved a representation to the Centre in 2015 and again in 2016, but failed to get any response.
‘Not For Judicial Interpretation’
The bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose said, “Ex facie, the prayers are not tenable and not appropriate for judicial interpretation.”
After imposing costs with the petition, the Court directed the former RAW officer to deposit the money with the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee
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