ON December 7, CPI (M) leader Mohamad Yousuf Tarigami has questioned the passage of recent bills in the parliament.

The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Amendment Bill) was passed at a time when the Reorganisation Act itself is under the judicial scrutiny and the Apex court has heard the arguments from petitioners and the government. And it has yet to deliver its judgement.

The passage of amendment bills at this juncture appears to be in sharp contrast to democratic and judicial practices.

It has become a standard practice of the current dispensation to take undemocratic and unconstitutional decisions.

Moreover, the Jammu and Kashmir government had already passed the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation Act, 2004. The Act provided for reservations in recruitments and admission in professional colleges to the members of Schedule Caste, Schedule Tribes and other socially and educationally backward classes.

The Jammu and Kashmir Reservation (Amendment) Bill, 2023 replacing the terms like "weak and underprivileged classes" with "other backward classes" seems a mere linguistic revision.
On the one hand the government seems adamant to continue to keep the J&K people disempowered by refusing to hold assembly elections since 2018 despite competition from the so-called delimitation process, upgradation of electoral rolls and tall claims of normalcy.

The nomination of two members from the Kashmiri Pandit community to the legislative assembly reeks of the current dispensation's intentions of never rehabilitating them in their native places.
The members from the community like DP Dhar, Pyari Lal Hindoo, Manohar Lal Koul and others had contested elections and were elected to the assembly in the past.
Moreover, the power to nominate the members should rest with the elected government and not to any un-elected authority.