We have rejected delimitation commission, verdict doesn’t matter: PDP’s Mehbooba Mufti

A bench of Justices S K Kaul and A S Oka, while dismissing a petition filed by two Srinagar residents, made it clear that it had not ruled on the validity of the Jammu and Kashmir Re-organisation Act, 2019, which is pending before the SC in connection with petitions against the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution.

Calling the delimitation exercise a “tactical process of rigging before the elections,” Mufti said, “That’s what they have done, converting the majority into a minority, in favour of the BJP. We have not even participated in the discussions of the delimitation commission.”

“We have rejected the delimitation commission from the outset. It does not matter to us what the verdict is,” she added.

Mehbooba said that the courts were the “last hope and resort” for anyone in the country. “As far as the judiciary is concerned, where will a poor person go? Even (Chief) Justice D Y Chandrachud has said that lower courts are scared of giving bail. If a court is scared of giving bail, how would they deliver (fair) verdicts?… There was a time when a verdict from the court unseated then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Today, people don’t even get bail from the courts,” she said.

CPI(M) leader M Y Tarigami, a spokesperson for the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration, called the SC’s decision “another disappointment for the people of Jammu and Kashmir”.

He added that carrying out the delimitation process under the Jammu and Kashmir Re-organisation Act is “unacceptable”. “It is just delimitation in the name of delimitation. They have virtually disrupted the unity of people of Jammu and Kashmir,” Tarigami said.

— with inputs from PTI