A Year After the Leh Firing: Why Withdrawing Cases Does Not Answer Ladakh's Constitutional Demands

Withdrawing Cases Is Not a Constitutional Safeguard

The withdrawal was carried out under Section 360 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita. Under that provision, the Public Prosecutor, with the court's consent, may withdraw from prosecuting a person. It is a procedural power the executive can use at its discretion: it can be granted and a similar decision can later go the other way.

It gives Ladakh's people no lasting rights. That is the central problem. What Ladakh has received is executive leniency. What it has been asking for, since becoming a Union Territory without a legislature in 2019, is constitutional protection.

The

Rule as Written A Union Territory is administered by the President through an administrator (Article 239). Parliament may create a legislature for a UT by law, as it did for Jammu and Kashmir, but it did not do so for Ladakh.

So a region that is about 97% Scheduled Tribe is governed by a Lieutenant Governor without an elected assembly of its own. The Sixth Schedule, which provides constitutionally protected Autonomous District Councils with powers over land, forests and customary law, applies only to tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram.

Extending it to Ladakh would require a constitutional amendment. Article 371 and its sub-clauses give special protections to particular States. Ladakh is not a State, so a "371-type" safeguard for a Union Territory would itself be a new constitutional arrangement.

The MHA is reported to be considering a customised Article 371 model and the Centre is reported to have floated a new provision. Wangchuk's complaint is that the details have not been shared.

The

Rule as Practised In practice, Ladakh's safeguards are statutory. Its Autonomous Hill Development Councils were created under a 1995 Act and the administration announced in July 2026 that councils would be extended to all seven districts.

Parliament can change a statute by ordinary law. Constitutional protection can only be changed by amendment. That difference in durability is why Ladakh's representatives want the Sixth Schedule and not only additional councils.

Reading the Withdrawal The details are revealing:

• Four of the 20 were already dead. Withdrawing charges against them affects no living person. It is a symbolic acknowledgement, not relief.
• The L-G thanked the Union Home Minister, which shows the decision came from the Centre, as all major decisions for Ladakh do.
• Withdrawals have come in stages (25, then 20, out of 87), timed around negotiations and the anniversary. They work as confidence-building measures, which is useful but different from a settlement. The decision is a welcome humanitarian step. Families get closure and those whose cases have been dropped can move on with their lives. But administrative leniency cannot substitute for constitutional safeguards.

For the exam: Ladakh illustrates asymmetric federalism under strain. Remember the key distinction: statutory councils and discretionary executive decisions on one side, constitutional safeguards such as the Sixth Schedule or Article 371 on the other. Only the second cannot be changed by ordinary law.