Over 83,000 people “non-state subjects” have been given domicile certificates in the last two years, the Jammu and Kashmir government has said. In a written reply to PDP’s Waheed ur Rehman Para, the J&K Revenue department stated that of 35,12,184 domicile certificates issued through the department in the last two years, 83,742 have been to those who did not earlier qualify as permanent residents. Significantly, it said that the term state-subjects referred to permanent residents in J&K as the previous definition in the Constitution of J&K no longer applicable in J&K. Under the Jammu and Kashmir Constitution, a citizen of India was a permanent resident of the erstwhile state under two conditions: if on May 14, 1954, they were a state subject of class I or of class II, they lawfully acquired immovable property in the state and were ordinarily resident in the state for not less than 10 years prior to that date, or people who had migrated to areas that later became Pakistan but had returned to the state “under a permit for resettlement or for permanent return issued by or under the authority of any law made by the state legislature”. Class I state subjects were those who were born and were resident in the state before the commencement of the reign of Maharaja Gulab Singh, the first Dogra king, in 1846; as well as those who had settled in J&K and had been permanently residing in the state before the commencement of Samvat year 1942, corresponding to 1885. Class II included people who had come from other places and permanently settled in J&K, and had acquired immoveable property there before the close of Samvat year 1968 (1911), when Maharaja Pratap Singh was on the throne. In May 2020 - months after the abrogation of Article 370 - the J&K administration issued a notification, the ‘J&K Grant of Domicile Certificate (Procedure) Rules 2020’, defining the rules for issuing domicile certificates in the Union territory. Prior to this, the Centre had issued the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Adaptation of State Laws) Order 2020, which defined domicile as any person “who has resided for a period of 15 years in the UT of J&K or has studied for a period of seven years and appeared in class 10th/12th examination in an educational institution located in the UT of J&K”. This allowed those that met this criterion but were not previously within the domain of “permanent resident” to be included in the UT’s count of citizens. As a result of the new rules and procedure, West Pakistan Refugees (WPRs), Safai Karamcharis and children of women married outside J&K became eligible for domicile certificates. Speaking to The Indian Express, Para said that the numbers should be probed. “We strongly object to this certification and seek investigation against it. We want this to be revoked in totality,” he said. “Since the certification is a key requirement for securing jobs, the larger figure here represents locals who are also required to secure domicile certificates.”
