New Delhi: The Supreme Court yesterday declined a plea by the Jammu and Kashmir Awami National Conference to put on hold the assembly election, as the party contended that a large number of people displaced in the recent devastating floods will not able to exercise their franchise.
“Sorry,” said the bench of Chief Justice H L Dattu and Justice A K Sikri as it declined to accept counsel Rajiv Dhawan’s plea that lakhs of people, even within Srinagar, were displaced and there was no school building where polling booths can be located for voting as is generally done.
“They are not ready for relief, but they say they are ready for election. They don’t have manpower to carry out relief operations,” Dhawan said, pointing to the gravity of the situation.
Founded by former chief minister G M Shah, the Jammu and Kashmir Awami National Conference faulted the Election Commission’s decision to hold elections in the state both on the count of wrong reading of its constitutional provisions and misunderstanding of the ground situation.
The court also declined a plea by petitioner Vasundhara Pathak Masoodi to ask the Centre to release `410bn sought by the state government for relief and rehabilitation of the flood-affected people.
“We can’t force them to give it tomorrow. It is not just `1bn, it is `410bn,” Chief Justice Dattu told the petitioner.
Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the court that the demand by the Kashmir government will be examined by the finance ministry and the Planning Commission.
Mehta said an inter-ministerial team visited the flood-affected state and has submitted its report which will be examined.
As Masoodi said students should be promoted to the next class without burdening them with examinations, as the school buildings were in a very bad condition, the advocate general of Jammu and Kashmir said the state government has already postponed the examination scheduled for November till March 2015.
He said that as far as board examinations for senior classes were concerned, they were governed by the state’s Secondary Board. And as it was an autonomous body, it will take its own call.
IANS
