Former union minister Saifuddin Soz Tuesday said that eminent jurist Nani Palkiwala’s concept about Article 370 would be analysed in connection with the case being contested before the Supreme Court of India.
In a statement issued here, Soz said, “Nani Palkiwala had rightly cautioned the nation at a time by saying that ‘you cannot remove Article 370, because that was a condition Kashmir became a part of India. If Article 370 is removed, I don’t see why Kashmir should continue to be a part of India. This is what I have been saying for years and years.’ Nani Palkiwala never imagined this Article could be abrogated.”
The statement quoted Soz as saying that Home Minister Amit Shah’s gesture of restoring the statehood for Jammu and Kashmir at some point of time in future did not answer the requirement of the people of Kashmir.
“Many so-called mainstream leaders in Kashmir also brag that they will fight for the restoration of the statehood,” he said in the statement. “These efforts are essentially meant to dissuade the people of Kashmir from the right path of their impulse that is essentially their struggle for restoration of their special status enshrined in Article 370 of the constitution of India, now abrogated, unilaterally by the Government of India.”
Soz said that it was the struggle that matters and the people of Kashmir had already initiated a democratic process of their struggle.