According to a media report, MQM-Pakistan Member National Assembly/senior leader Dr. FarooqSattar while talking to media persons at parliament house has announced that his party would table 28th amendment constitutional amendment bill in the both houses of the parliament for declaring Gilgit-Baltistan as constitutional province of the country. As per report, he further said that it was long-standing demand of the people of Gilgit-Baltistan that the region be given the status of province and people of the area may take decisions about their own issues and get the due share from the federal government like other provinces of the country. According to media report, Member National Assembly FarooqSatter has said that bill pertaining to declaring the region as constitutional province would be tabled by following the method through which Indian government had changedArtilce-35-A and 370 of Indian Constitution to alter the special status of Indian occupied Kashmir. Media report also quoted the by saying him that it may not be fatal to declare the region as constitutional province and people of the area should be given the right of ownership of the lands situated in the area.
Constitutional status of Gilgit-Baltistan under the ambit of Article-1 of constitution of Pakistan-1973 has not yet been decided despite of constant demand on the part of people of GIlgit-Baltistan for the last 77 years and governance affairs of the region were being managed/regulated trough the executive orders issued by the Ministry of Kashmir Affairs from time to time. People of the area had invoked the Supreme Court of Pakistan for provision of fundamental rights to them equal to the people of other provinces/parts of the country and Supreme Court of Pakistan had delivered a two land mark judgments i.e on 17th January 2019 by a seven member bench headed by the then Chief Justice of Pakistan and on 28th May 1999 a five member bench of the Apex Court of the country for the provision of legal and fundamental rights to the people of then Northern Areas (now Gilgit-Baltistan) and it was hold by the Apex Court of the country that people of Northern Areas (now Gilgit-Baltistan) are citizen of Pakistan for all intends and purpose, but the people of the area are stil deprived from their fundamental rights and they have no representing in the parliament of the country and right of appeal before the Supreme Court of Pakistan. It may be pertinent to mention here that during the tenure of PTI led government, draft of 26th constitutional bill was prepared for conferment of interim province status to the area, but the said bill could not be tabled due to the reasons best known by the then federal government led by PTI and government of PTI was changed through no-confidence motion in the National Assembly. Present present federal government led by PML-N with the support of PPP and other parties had already introduced 26th amendment bill about the judicial reforms in the country and further amendments in the constitution were on cards. Now the Member National Assembly/senior leader of MQM-Pakistan DrFarooqSattar has said that his party would table 28th constitutional amendment bill regarding the granting of province status to the territory of Gilgit-Baltistan as it was long-standing demand of the people and it would not be fatal to confer the status of province to the area. He has also pointed out that Indian government had already brought amendments in their constitution in order to change the Article 35-A and 370 of Indian Constitutional and had altered the special status of Indian held Kashmir and declared the former state of Jammu and Kashmir is its constitutional part. MQM-Pakistan leader has rightly pointed out that it was long-standing demand of the people of Gilgit-Baltistan that the areas comprises of Gilgit-Baltistan should be declared as de-jure part of the federation of Pakistan in terms of Article 1 of the Constitution and if the MQM-P would table the proposed amendment in the parliament, it would be positive step towards the settlement of legal and constitutional status of Gilgit-Baltistan and people of the region would be thankful to MQM-Pakistan, if they would acted upon and bring the proposed constitutional amendment about theGilgit-Baltistan legal status.
It would be appropriate for the G-B Assembly to adopt a resolution regarding the conferment of constitutional province status during the ongoing session and shall demand for inclusion of G-B legal status issue in the up-coming constitutional amendment bill.
