Blitz Bureau
JAMMU and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court has observed that there will be no change in the migrant status of Kashmiri Pandit women if they marry non-migrants. A Division Bench of Justice Atul Sreedharan and Justice Mohammad Yousuf Wani upheld a Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) order in favour of two women selected under the Prime Minister employment package.
Two women, Seema Koul and Vishalni Koul moved the high court in 2018 after their provisional selection to the post of legal assistant in the Department of Disaster Management Relief, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction under the Prime Minister package for Kashmiri migrants in December 2017 was forfeited on the ground that they have lost their migrant status having married nonmigrant persons.
“One question of public importance that arises before this court is whether a woman who has been given a migrant status on account of the suffering endured by her and her family on account of which they were forced to leave their home and hearth in the Kashmir Valley could be discriminated and would stand to lose the said status only on account of the fact that she had got married to a non-migrant? “Holding this would be going against the nature of human beings. Respondents herein, who are ladies and on account of no fault of theirs, had to leave their place of original residence in Kashmir Valley, cannot be expected to remain unmarried only to secure a job in the Kashmir Valley as a migrant,” the Bench said.
