by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
A Lokmat Exclusive story
The Untold story of Abrogation of Article 370
How A Constitutional Blunder was averted on J&K !
An Alert JS saved Amit Shah of huge embarrassment
Harish Gupta
New Delhi, Jan 30
It has now surfaced that a Constitutional blunder was averted on August 5 when Union Home Minister Amit Shah was in the midst of getting the abrogate of Article 370 passed in the Rajya Sabha.
In fact, Amit Shah was jubilant as the government has almost succeeded in getting the bill passed in the Upper House despite not having even a simple majority. Ministers after ministers were rushing to Amit Shah's Parliament House's chamber to congratulate him when he came to have a cup of tea.
It was around 5 in the evening when a Joint Secretary who was quietly standing in toe whispered that the J&K Re-organisation and abrogation of Article 370 would be illegal unless the prior approval of the Lok Sabha is taken.
There was a stunning silence in the room packed with ministers and couple of officers. One of Amit Shah's favourite ministers snubbed the JS for his atrocious suggestion. He said the twin bills were cleared by experts and procedures adopted in abrogating Article 370 and there was no need for a new element.
But Amit Shah has an uncanny knack and allowed the JS to have his say. It was pointed out that since Article 370 can be abrogated only by the J&K Constituent Assembly or the J&K Assembly in the absence of the former, the Rajya Sabha cannot abrogate it. He pointed out a Resolution has to be placed in the Lok Sabha first authorising the House to be vested with the powers of J&K Assembly. Once this was done, the twin bills can be passed.
The Joint Secretary was found to be correct in his submissions. But this created a new problem and a lot of formalities were to be done. . It was also discovered that the Lok Sabha was discussing the Surrogacy bill. Amit Shah walked up to the Speaker and impressed upon him the need to immediately seek the permission to table the resolution vesting the powers of the J&K Assembly in Parliament breaking the dicssion on the Surrogacy Bill. There were hardly any Opposition members on the benches except for the DMK's T R Baalu who opposed it. But the ruling party had it way and the Resolution was allowed.
A triumphant Amit Shah walked back to the Rajya Sabha armed with the Lokn Sabha authorisation and tabled it the RS in the melee. Rest is history.
Ends
