No change in migrant status of Kashmiri Pandit women marrying non-migrants: J&K HC

Jammu, Dec 1: The High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh has observed that there will be no change in the migrant status of Kashmiri Pandit women even if they marry non-migrants, upholding a Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) order in favour of two women selected under PM employment package.
The two women — Seema Koul and Vishalni Koul — had 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 re-construction under the PM package for Kashmiri migrants in December 1, 2017 forfeited on the ground that they have lost their migrant status having married non-migrant persons.
“One question of public important 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 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,” a division bench of Justices Atul Sreedharan and Mohammad Yousuf Wani said in a seven-page order last month. It is also reasonable to presume that because of the exodus, not every migrant woman would be in a position to find a match who himself was a migrant, it said. (PTI)