RK Mathur sworn in as first lieutenant governor of Union Territory of Ladakh

New Delhi : From Wednesday midnight, Jammu and Kashmir has been divided into two Union territories, 86 days after the Indian Parliament had scrapped Article 370 of the Indian constitution that gave special status to J&K. 

RK Mathur was sworn in as first lieutenant governor of Union Territory of Ladakh on Thursday.

In a late night notification, home ministry officially replaced the state of Jammu and Kashmir with the "union territory of Jammu and Kashmir" and announced omission of "permanent residents or hereditary state subjects".

The rules of UT will now be implemented on the state and there will be a legislature like Puducherry with an elected legislative assembly and a chief minister. Ladakh, on the other hand, will be a UT without legislature like Chandigarh. It will have two hill development councils.

Both UTs will be headed by lieutenant governors (L-G), under the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019.

GC Murmu will sworn in as the lieutenant governor of Jammu and Kashmir by chief justice of the Srinagar high court Gita Mittal in a ceremony around 12.30pm at the Raj Bhavan. 

The notification also announced several measures including application of central laws in the erstwhile state.

“... there are references in the state laws that have been applied to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, and the Union Territory of Ladakh to the expressions ‘permanent residents’ or ‘hereditary state subjects’..., wherever they occur, shall be omitted,” it said.

The references, by whatever form of words, to the “state of Jammu and Kashmir” or “Jammu and Kashmir” or “state” shall from October 31 be construed as “Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir” or “Union Territory of Ladakh”, as the case may be, it said.