Dhavan (reads from Navtej Singh Johar): "The ultimate goal of our magnificent constitution is to make right the upheaval which existed in Indian society before the adoption of the Constitution..."
Dhavan: "The design of our constitution is such that it accomodates the interests of different regions while providing a larger constitutional umbrella..."
Dhavan: Now I'll come to the importance of the Delhi decisions. I'll do the second once first. "Held that regard must be had to principles of asymmetrical federalism embodied in the Indian constitution..."
Dhavan: For others, you gave autonomous regions, you bond them together, you expanded it. But this- the J&K Constitution of 1957, we wished it away? It simply can't. J&K had a constitution. Where is it now?
Dhavan: I will come to what Sardar Patel said. This is important to understand what 370 represented and what IoA did.
Dhavan: All the IoA did was put in the four conditions and fed externally. That's why I made the distinction between external and internal sovereignty.
Dhavan: What 370 represents is two powerful democratic movements- in people of India, and in people of Kashmir, demanding their Maharaja, which is what he did - he gave up Rajya sabha, but he didn't agree to a constituent assembly which came later.
Dhavan: Even after the IoA, he had not given up his rights.
Dhavan: I am making a point on why merger agreement was important and why Art 370 substituted a standstill and merger agreement. I'm going to read the Premnath Kaul judgement.
Dhavan: "Each piece, like a citizen of India, plays an important part in making of the whole...even when one small piece of marble is removed, the whole map of India would be scarred, and the beauty would be lost."
This is a very evocative passage so I wanted to read it.