Jammu and Kashmir

Jammu and Kashmir was, for a long period, the other major example of a state with a special constitutional status, governed under Article 370. At the time of Independence, J&K was one of the large princely states that had the option of joining India, joining Pakistan, or remaining independent.

Soon after Independence, in October 1947, Pakistan sent tribal infiltrators into Kashmir in an attempt to seize the territory. This forced the ruler of the state, Maharaja Hari Singh, to seek India's help, and he acceded to the Indian Union. While many Muslim-majority areas in the western and eastern parts of British India joined Pakistan at Partition, Jammu and Kashmir was a notable exception in staying with India, and in light of the circumstances of its accession it was granted considerably greater autonomy than other states.

Under Article 370, laws on subjects listed in the Union List and the Concurrent List could be extended to Jammu and Kashmir only with the concurrence of the state government -- unlike other states, where the normal three-list division of powers applied automatically. This meant the central government's powers over J&K were far more limited, and it could legislate on Union or Concurrent List matters there only with the state's consent, giving Jammu and Kashmir a genuinely higher degree of autonomy. There was also an earlier provision allowing the President, with the state government's concurrence, to specify which parts of the Union List would apply to the state; using this route, the President issued two constitutional orders, agreed to by the J&K government, that extended large parts of the Constitution to the state. As a result, although Jammu and Kashmir had its own separate constitution and its own flag, Parliament's authority to legislate on subjects in the Union List came to be fully accepted there. …