J&K amends domicile rules, spouses of native women can apply for permanent residency

Share

Tweet

Share

Share

Email

Comments

The Government of Jammu and Kashmir has made certain changes to its domicile rules. In a notification issued on July 20, the J&K administration enabled spouses of native women married outside the Union Territory to apply for permanent residency in the Territory.
What were the rules before?

Prior to the scrapping of Section 370, the spouses of women belonging to Jammu and Kashmir, when marrying a person from the rest of the country, were not eligible for the domicile certificate. Further, the native women married to non-Kashmiris could only get their children to apply for domicile certificates.

The word “spouse”, according to the J&K Grant of Domicile Certificate (Procedure) Rules 2020 was only applicable to non-Kashmiri wives of native men.

What are the changes?

According to the notification, the spouse of a native woman, under 3A(2)(3) of the Jammu and Kashmir Civil Services Decentralization and Recruitment Act, will be eligible to seek a domicile certificate of the UT after the marriage.

To do so, the person will have to make an application with necessary certificates, including the domicile certificate of the spouse, and a valid proof of marriage to the Deputy Commissioner.

As per the information provided by the Government of Jammu & Kashmir, a total of 35,44,938 applications for the issue of Domicile Certificate was received by the administration as of December 31, 2020, out of which 32,31,353 applicants were issued Domicile Certificates.

According to former Minister of State for Home Affairs, G. Kishan Reddy, a total of 2,15,438 applications were rejected as on December 31, 2020, due to the lack of proper documents. Meanwhile, 31,08,682 Domicile Certificates have been issued to the dependents/holders of erstwhile Permanent Resident Certificates in the UT of Jammu and Kashmir as of the said date.