Chief Minister of the region Haji Gulbar Khan during his interaction with the beat journalists of Gilgit-Baltitan and Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK) based in Islamabad has claimed that President of Pakistan and Prime Minister have assured to re-constitute a committee regarding the constitutional status of Gilgit-Baltistan. Chief Minister of the area further said that the proposed committee would be comprises of federal ministers and ministers of the regional government and the proposed committee would prepare and finalized its recommendations in the light of previous reports with regards to the constitutional status of the area. Chief Minister of the area also said that Prime Minister of Pakistan was apprised that that people of the region were not satisfied over the Daimer-Basha Dam royalty issues, where-as six seats each in National Assembly and Senate of Pakistan (i.e total 12 seats in both houses) should be given to the region. Chief Minister of the region explained that 99 percent people belonging to the region were in favor of constitutional province status. Earlier, Governor and Chief Minister of the region had held a meeting with the President of Pakistanin order to discuss various issues of the area including the introduction of political reforms in the area.
Granting of constitutional province status to the region was the constant demand of the people of the area , but the area comprises of Gilgit-Baltistan was not yet brought under the ambit of Constitution of Pakistan in terms of Article 1 of the Constitution despite of the fact that the territory of Gilgit-Baltistan was being treated as part and parcel of the country for all intends and purposes. Where-as people of the area had been declared as citizen of Pakistan by the Supreme Court of Pakistan on 28th May 1999 for all practical purposes and a larger bench of Supreme Court of Pakistan comprises of seven judges headed by the then Chief Justice of Pakistan had re-affirmed the previous judgment of Supreme Court on 17th January 2019 and had directed the federal government to provide constitutional rights to the people of Gilgit-Baltistan like the people of other provinces of the country by enforcing the Order-2019 with-in two weeks, but this decision was not yet implemented by the federal government. It was also mentioned in the pre-amble of Order-2019 that the federal government intends to give the provisional province status to the area, which requires amendments in the Constitution of Pakistan and government (i.e the than federal government) lacks required majority in the parliament of the country and it would take time to achieve the objective and till the such time, Order-2019 would be enforced (Order-2019 is part of the seven member bench judgment of 2019) but neither Order-2019 was enforced up-till now nor any attempt was made to carry-out requisite amendments in the Constitution of Pakistan. Now the Chief Minister of the area HajiGulbar Khan has claimed that President and Prime Minister had assured to re-constitute a committee comprises of federal and regional ministers to prepare their recommendations for granting of constitutional status to the area in the light of previous reports.It was beyond the understanding that in presence of the Supreme Court of Pakistan land mark decision over the constitutional rights issue of the area, how a new committee comprises of federal and regional ministers could be constituted over the decision of Apex Court of the country and constitution of any proposed committee would be amounting to further delay the matter and it would not yield any result as the issue of G-B legal status was deliberated time and again and draft amendment was alreadyprepared by the then law ministerFaroghNaseem, which was lying with the government of the area .
It would be appropriate for the government of the region to urge the federal government to implement the decision of Apex Court of country in letter and spirit instead of wasting the time by constituting a new committee upon the already settled issue and it would be a futile exercise…….END
