Parliament Winter Session: Centre to move J-K reservation and reorganisation amendment Bills in Lok Sabha for passage

New Delhi [India] : The Central government is set to move the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation (Amendment) Bill, 2023, and the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill, 2023 in the Lok Sabha later on Tuesday for the consideration and passage.

Both the Bills, as per the list of business in the Lower House, are to be moved by Union Home Minister Amit Shah for consideration.

According to the list of business, Shah is to move the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation (Amendment) Bill, 2023 in the Lok Sabha further to amend the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation Act, 2004.

The Jammu and Kashmir Reservation (Amendment) Bill, 2023, was introduced in Lok Sabha on July 26, 2023. It amends the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation Act of 2004.

The Act provides for reservation in jobs and admission in professional institutions to members of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and other socially and educationally backward classes.

The key features of the Bill comprise socially and educationally backward classes that include people residing in villages declared as socially and educationally backwards by the Union Territory (UT) of Jammu and Kashmir, people residing in areas adjoining the Actual Line of Control and International Border, and weak and under-privileged classes (social castes), as notified.

The government may make inclusions or exclusions from the category of weak and under-privileged classes, on the recommendations of a Commission.

The Bill substitutes weak and under-privileged classes with other backward classes as declared by the UT of Jammu and Kashmir. The definition of weak and underprivileged classes is deleted from the Act.

Shah will later move the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill, 2023 to amend the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019.

The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill, 2023 was introduced in Lok Sabha on July 26, 2023. The Bill amends the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019. The Act provides for the reorganisation of the state of Jammu and Kashmir into the union territories of Jammu and Kashmir (with legislature) and Ladakh (without legislature).

The Second Schedule of the Representation of the People Act of 1950 provides for the number of seats in legislative assemblies. The 2019 Act amended the Second Schedule of the 1950 Act to specify the total number of seats in the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly to be 83.

It reserved six seats for Scheduled Castes. No seats were reserved for Scheduled Tribes.

The Bill increases the total number of seats to 90. It also reserves seven seats for Scheduled Castes and nine seats for Scheduled Tribes.

The Bill adds that the Lieutenant Governor may nominate up to two members from the Kashmiri migrant community to the Legislative Assembly. One of the nominated members must be a woman. Migrants are defined as persons who migrated from the Kashmir Valley or any other part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir after November 1, 1989 and are registered with the Relief Commissioner.

Migrants also include individuals who have not been registered due to being in government service in any moving office, having left for work, or possessing immovable property at the place from where they migrated but are unable to reside there due to disturbed conditions. The Bill adds that the Lieutenant Governor may nominate to the Legislative Assembly one member representing displaced persons from Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir. Displaced persons refer to individuals who left or were displaced from their place of residence in Pakistani-occupied Jammu and Kashmir and continue to reside outside such place.

Such displacement should have taken place in 1947-48, 1965, or 1971 due to civil disturbances or fear of such disturbances. These include successors-in-interest of such persons.