The Supreme Court on Monday raised questions on a provision in the erstwhile Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir which mandated that a person needed to own property to be able to get permanent resident status in the region, The Indian Express reported.

Justice Sanjeev Khanna termed the requirement as “very odd” at the hearing of petitions against the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

This was after Senior Advocate Guru Krishnakumar, representing a group of people displaced from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, said that thousands of Hindu and Sikh families who were forced to flee the region have not been able to return to their ancestral homes.

Krishnakumar said that such families were also denied benefits that had been given to other displaced citizens in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.

The lawyer argued that Section 6 of the erstwhile constitution of Jammu and Kashmir, as well as Article 35A of the Constitution of India “empowered the administration to systematically discriminate against such Indian citizens”.

Article 35A of the Constitution gave power to the legislature in the erstwhile state to define its permanent residents.

Krishnakumar said that those who were not permanent residents as per these provisions would need to fall back on the definition of a permanent resident as per an order passed by the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir in 1927. To this, Justice Khanna asked whether it would not be difficult to get documentation from 1927.

On August 28, the Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud said that Article 35A curtailed the rights to equal opportunity of state employment, acquire property and settle in Jammu and Kashmir for non-residents.

The court also said that the law had granted the state immunity from judicial review to these special privileges.

The case will be heard further on Tuesday.

Also read:

What exactly are the changes to land laws in Jammu and Kashmir?