J&K women reservation bill gets RS nod

3rd J&K-specific law passed in winter session

Srinagar, Dec 18  : The Jammu & Kashmir Reorganisation (second amendment) bill-2023 was cleared in the Rajya Sabha on Monday to pave the way for reserving one-third of all elected seats in the Jammu & Kashmir Legislative Assembly for women.

As per news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), amid pandemonium over the security breach in the Lok Sabha on December 13, Jammu & Kashmir Reorganisation (second amendment) bill-2023 was passed in the Rajya Sabha today, without any discussion and debate in the House.

With the passage of the bill in Rajya Sabha, all legal hurdles have been cleared for reservation of one-third of all elected seats in J&K Assembly for women. Like other states and Union Territories with assemblies, the bill wouldn’t come into effect before 2029.

The proposed bill would come into effect after an exercise of delimitation is undertaken after the Government of India publishes its next census data.

Interestingly, the bill wouldn’t affect the powers of Lieutenant Governor to nominate two members to the Legislative Assembly, if in his opinion, women are not adequately represented in the House. The provision empowering the LG to nominate two women as MLAs has not been scrapped from The Jammu & Kashmir Reorganisation Act-2019.

The bill was brought as “The Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Eighth Amendment) Bill-2023, cleared by the Parliament in  September this year for granting political reservation to women in Lok Sabha and state assemblies, was not applicable to the Assembly of Jammu & Kashmir UT.

It is worthwhile to mention that this is the third J&K -specific bill passed in the Parliament during the ongoing winter session.

Earlier, the Parliament passed Jammu & Kashmir Reorganisation (amendment) bill-2023 and Jammu & Kashmir Reservation (amendment) bill-2023—(KNO)