New Delhi: The Union Ministry of Law and Justice issued Thursday a three-page correction after more than 50 glaring spelling and grammatical errors were found in the legislation of Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, passed by Parliament, August 7. This move will certainly lend credence to the opposition’s argument that the legislation aimed at bifurcating the state was introduced hastily.
The errors which have come to light have certainly left the government red-faced. There were a total of 52 glaring errors in the legislation, ranging from silly spelling mistakes to major grammatical errors.
For instance, in the legislation, there are a large number of spelling mistakes. Among the spelling mistakes are Administrator which became ‘Adminstrator’ while article was written as ‘artcle’, territories became ‘tterritories’, and Shariat became ‘Shariet’.
Some government officials termed the bill as a ‘tale of missing I’s and additional T’s’. However, it should not be forgotten that it was a crucial document and such errors could have been avoided had it been prepared more carefully.
“It was supposed to be an important piece of legislation, and these mistakes show just what kind of a tearing hurry the government was in to get the Bill passed. This has turned out to be a comedy of errors,” an opposition MP said. It should be stated here that the Bill was passed August 7 and a gazette notification was issued two days later after President Ram Nath Kovind with which his assent was accrued.
It should also be stated here that a line stating that a delimitation exercise will be carried out for parliamentary constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir has now been taken out of the bill.
Other mistakes in the document turned out to be more than just spelling errors. The ‘Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir’ became the ‘State of Jammu and Kashmir’; the ‘Institutions Act, 2004’ became the ‘Institute’s Act, 2004’; and the date ‘1909’ was wrongly written as ‘1951’.
However, the government is of the opinion that with the corrections done, everything is now in order. “The anomalies in the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act have been corrected with this corrigenda,” a Home Ministry official said.
Agencies