In a massive development, the Government of Jammu and Kashmir has made an important decision to bring necessary changes to its domicile rules to allow permanent residency to the spouses of women married outside. As per the notification issued on July 20 by the J&K LG administration, husbands of the women residents married outside the Union Territory will now be enabled to apply for permanent residency in Jammu and Kashmir with the help of domicile certificates. The amendment is set to bring a big relief to the thousands of families who will be allowed to access the basic rights that they were denied earlier.

 

According to the notification issued by the the J&K administration, 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 Union Territory after the marriage. For this, the person will have to put up an application with necessary documents including the domicile certificate of the spouse, along with a valid proof of marriage such as marriage certificate to the Deputy Commissioner.

 

 

 

What were the domicile rules earlier and some relevant figures

 

Before the reorganisation of the Union Territory of J&K last year, the partners of native women who had married outside J&K, were not eligible for the domicile certificate. Besides, such women 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.

 

According to the data availed by the Government of Jammu & Kashmir, a total of 35,44,938 applications for the issue of Domicile Certificate were received by the administration as of December 31, 2020, out of which 32,31,353 applicants were issued Domicile Certificates. However, according to former Minister of State for Home Affairs, G. Kishan Reddy, a total of 2,15,438 applications were rejected out of all due to lack of proper documents. Meanwhile, as per the same figures a total of 31,08,682 Domicile Certificates have been issued to the dependents/holders of erstwhile Permanent Resident Certificates in the UT of Jammu and Kashmir till date.