Navin Kumar Choudhary, an IAS officer from Bihar, has become the first senior non-local officer to get a domicile certificate under the new domicile laws notified after the abrogation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status .
Mr. Chaudhary, principal secretary, Jammu and Kashmir Agriculture Production Department, was given a domicile certificate by a tehsildar in the Bahu area of Jammu. He has been serving in the Jammu and Kashmir government for the past 26 years.
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“This is to certify, Shri Navin K Choudhary, son of Shri Deokant Choudhary, resident of, at present, Gandhi Nagar, Jammu, is a domicile of UT of J&K,” reads the certificate, which went viral on social media.
According to the officials, the applicant was eligible under Rule 5 of the Jammu and Kashmir Grant Domicile Certificate (Procedure) Rules, 2020, notified on May 18. Several categories were introduced through the new domicile laws to allow non-locals to apply for domicile certificate, which is mandatory for buying land and applying for jobs and admission to educational institutes in the Union Territory.
Over 32,000 applications have been received, mainly in the Jammu Division, from locals as well as non-locals for domicile certificates.
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National Conference vice-president Omar Abdullah said, “All our misgivings about the new domicile rules in Jammu and Kashmir are coming to the fore. The NC opposed the changes because we could see a nefarious design behind the changes. The people on both sides of the Pir Panjal mountains will be the sufferers of these domicile rules.”
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In a statement, NC chief spokesperson Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi said the domicile rules would never be acceptable because they were aimed at “dis-empowering” the people of Jammu and Kashmir. “The rules will push people with valid State subject certificates to uncertainty and unnecessary hardship,” he said.
A People’s Democratic Party spokesperson said in a statement that the objective of population replacement was to change the Muslim majority character of Jammu and Kashmir at a time when everything in the country was viewed through the prism of religion. “As the agenda unfolds, it becomes clear that along with the intended demographic change, the target is the jobs, natural resources, cultural identity and everything that the people of Kashmir had tried to save by acceding to India with firm constitutional guarantees,” he said.
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The special status of Jammu and Kashmir was a matter of life and death for its people, and no one had the authority to challenge the very identity of the people in any court across the world, he said.