QUESTIONING ITS constitutional validity, three MPs from Kashmir have refused to be part of the Delimitation Commission on Jammu and Kashmir, and have urged the Commission to stop the process as the Act, under which the exercise is being carried out, is under judicial scrutiny.

The three – Farooq Abdullah, Hasnain Masoodi and Mohammad Akbar Lone – have conveyed their decision through a letter to commission chair Justice (Retd) Ranjan Prakash Desai.

The Delimitation Commission had invited the three MPs for a meeting, as associate members of the Commission, on February 18. The parliamentarians, however, have questioned the validity of the meeting as the writ petition against the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 is pending before the Supreme Court.

“In our view the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 is palpably unconstitutional…,” the MPs have written. “We are of the opinion that as vires of constitutional validity of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act 2019 and C. O 272 and 27 are under judicial scrutiny… the principle of Constitutional propriety demand that the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act 2019 should await Honb’le Supreme Court.”