Supreme Court to hear pleas challenging Article 370 revocation
The bench will comprising of five senior judges will start the hearing from August 2.
The Supreme Court said on Tuesday that it will start daily hearings on a number of petitions contesting the repeal of Article 370 of the Constitution, which granted the state of Jammu and Kashmir special status, from August 2. A five-judge Constitution bench led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and comprising of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, BR Gavai, Surya Kant, and Sanjiv Khanna set July 27 as the deadline for parties to submit written submissions and convenience compilations. The bench also issued other procedural directives.
The hearing will be done on a day-to-day basis except Mondays and Fridays, which are the days when the apex court hears miscellaneous matters. It designated two attorneys—one from each of the petitioners and the government’s sides—to create and submit a convenience compilation before July 27. The bench made it clear that no papers would be allowed after that time.
The five-judge bench ruled that the conditions in the former state of Jammu and Kashmir following the August 5, 2019 notification, as described in the Centre’s affidavit, had no relevance on the constitutional question that must be decided by the five-judge Constitution court.
IAS official Shah Faesal and Shehla Rashid Shora, two of the petitioners who are contesting the constitutional validity of the abrogation of Article 370, have submitted an application to have their names removed from the list of petitioners, according to senior attorney Raju Ramachandran, who is leading the petitioners. When speaking on behalf of the Centre, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta stated that he would not have any issues if any petitioners wanted to remove their names off the list. Shah and activist Shora were then given permission by the bench to have their names removed from the petitioners’ list.
On August 5, 2019, the government made the decision to divide the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories and revoke its special status. In 2019, a Constitution bench received a number of petitions contesting the Centre’s decision to repeal Article 370 and the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, which divided J-K into two union territories: Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
