Speaking at a book launch event in New Delhi, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval has termed the separate constitution of Jammu and Kashmir an aberration

Ajit Doval says J&K constitution is an aberration. Doval made the comment at a book launch in New Delhi. PIL has been filed in Supreme Court against J&K constitution

With petitions pending in the Supreme Court against Article 35A and Jammu and Kashmir constitution, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval has said that the separate constitution for the state is an "aberration" in the constitutional scheme of the Union of India. He said that the sovereignty of India could never be compromised.

Article 35A gives special power to Jammu and Kashmir Assembly to frame laws giving special privileges to the permanent residents of the state. Jammu and Kashmir adopted a separate constitution in 1956. It is the only state to have a separate constitution.

Doval said that sovereignty "cannot be a diluted and ill-defined". He also said that when the British left, "they probably did not want to leave India as a strong sovereign state."

Ajit Doval was speaking at the launch of a book on Vallabhbhai Patel in New Delhi on Tuesday, September 4. The book launch event was organised at Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF), a think-tank. Doval is one of the founding members of the VIF.

Praising Sardar Patel, Doval said, "His contribution is not about the merger of the states, it is only a means to an end. The thing was that to make a sovereign state in which there was the sovereignty of the people was established in the Constitution, which is applicable to the whole of it."

"Probably with Jammu and Kashmir, where the Constitution was...in a truncated form...another constitution of J&K continued to exist, which is aberration," Doval said.

"He (Patel) had been able to lay the foundation of a nation-state. And in nation-state, there was one law, one Constitution...Sovereignty can never be divided," Doval said.

Former Intelligence Bureau chief said that the nation building is an "exothermic process" that generates a lot of heat. Unless that heat is generated it is not able to have that melting point in which all the different identities can merge and become one identity, he said.

"Probably the heat was not sufficiently generated during our Independence movement because of the route that was taken. I am not criticising that...the non-violence was the route in which the cost of Independence was not really understood by our people," Doval said.

There is a separate PIL in the Supreme Court seeking abrogation of the separate constitution of Jammu and Kashmir.