The Union Ministry of Home Affairs has informed the Jammu and Kashmir High Court that the Union Territory’s Lieutenant-Governor can nominate five members to the J&K Legislative Assembly without the government’s “aid and advice”. It said the office of the Lieutenant-Governor was not an extension of the government.
The Ministry said that the nominations were “outside the realm of the business of the elected government of J&K”. “Once the Parliament bylaw recognises the Lieutenant-Governor as a distinct authority from the government of Union Territory under Parliamentary enactment, it necessarily follows that when a power is conferred upon the Lieutenant-Governor, then the same must be exercised as a statutory function and not as an extension of his duties as the head of the UT Government.... there can be no manner of doubt that it is the Lieutenant-Governor who has to exercise this statutory duty in his discretion, as a statutory functionary and not as an extension of the government, thus, without aid and advice,” the MHA’s affidavit in court said.
The powers to nominate three members -- two Kashmiri migrants, including a woman, and one member from the Pakistan-occupied-J&K (PoJK) community -- to the Assembly was inserted in 2023 with an amendment to the J&K Reorganisation Act, 2019 by the Parliament. The 2019 Act also provided for nomination of two women to the Assembly if in the opinion of the Lieutenant-Governor, women are not adequately represented in the Assembly.
