J&K HC stays hoisting of state flag with Tricolour

A division bench of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court on Friday stayed an order of a single-judge bench on hoisting of the state flag on all official buildings and vehicles of constitutional authorities in the State.

The judgment had – while restoring the state government’s circular issued in March previous year that enjoined all constitutional authorities to hoist state flags on buildings housing their offices and their official vehicles – said, “It connects past with the present and the future”.

The division bench stayed the single-judge order with observations that the March 12 order had no “statutory flavour” as J&K Prevention of Insult to State Honours Act, 1979 is a penal statute and its provisions can not be enforced through executive orders like a circular.

Underscoring the importance of the state flag, the court said that Jammu and Kashmir is only state in the Union that has its own flag adopted by its Constituent Assembly, and provided in its Constitution.

“Here’s what I’ll say – so long as J&K is a part of India, the two flags will continue to fly & we’ll take pride in it”, he tweeted.

National Conference in a party statement said, “the fact that BJP leaders had directly appealed for a stay order on the earlier High Court order clearly reveals BJP’s intentions to try and abrogate Article 370 and harm the attributes of the State’s Constitutional Autonomy while its alliance partner, the PDP is complicit in this nefarious conspiracy – as proved by PDP’s deafening silence”. The state’s constitution makes it mandatory for the state and national flags to be hoisted together.

In response to a petition filed in Srinagar to have a separate flag-raising day, the former Inspector-General of Police, Farooq Ahmed Khan, now the BJP’s national secretary, approached the court with a counter-petition to have the national flag “above everything else”. “We stand with the people of the State in their sentiments and sensitivities on this important issue”, the NC statement further said.

Meanwhile, Advocate-General Jahangir Iqbal said: “The State government will respond only after going through the copies of the judgment”.