Supreme Court: The five Judge Constitution Bench comprising of Dr. DY Chandrachud CJ., Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna, B.R. Gavai, and Surya Kant, JJ., discussed on the completion of pre-hearing formalities for batch of petitions challenging the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution of India and said that the hearing of the matter will be starting from 02-08-2023.
Background
On 05-08-2019, the Central Government had abrogated the Articles 370 and 35-A of the Constitution of India and the Parliament had passed the Jammu and Kashmir (Reorganisation) Act, 2019, which provided for the reogranisation of the State of Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcated the State into two Union Territories – Jammu and Kashmir with a legislature and Ladakh without one. In exercise of the powers conferred by clause (3) of Article 370 read with clause (1) of Article 370 of the Constitution of India, the President, on the recommendation of the Parliament, had declared that all clauses of the said Article 370 shall cease to be operative except for the provision that: “All provisions of this Constitution, as amended from time to time, without any modifications or exceptions, shall apply to the State of Jammu and Kashmir notwithstanding anything contrary contained in Article 152 or Article 308 or any other article of this Constitution or any other provision of the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir or any law, document, judgement, ordinance, order, by-law, rule, regulation, notification, custom or usage having the force of law in the territory of India, or any other instrument, treaty or agreement as envisaged under Article 363 or otherwise.”1
Several writ petitions were filed before the Court against the abrogation of Article 370 and reorganisation of the State of Jammu and Kashmir. While hearing a batch of these petitions, the Court had previously refused to refer the petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Centre’s move to abrogate Article 370 to a larger bench. The matter has now come before the Court after a period of more than 2 years.
Court’s Direction
It was brough to the attention of the Court that an application was moved on behalf of Dr. Shah Faesal for removal of his name from the array of Parties. A similar application was also moved on behalf of another petitioner Shehla Rashid by Advocates-on-Record Aakarsh Kamra and Charu Mathur for deletion of her name as well, on the grounds that Shehla Rashid was General Secretary of the JK People’s Movement Party at the time of filing of the said Writ Petition challenging the abrogation of Article 370 and that now she had resigned from her post. It was also submitted that she believed that she is not qualified enough to hold an informed opinion on the larger implications of abrogation of Article 370 as it was a Constitutional move which is now proving to be beneficial for the people of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
Consequently, it was brought out that the cause title was required to be amended. The Court allowed the said application and directed that the names of these petitioners shall be deleted from the array of the parties and with the consent of all the counsels present, the Court had decided to amend the cause title to ‘In Re: Article 370 of the Constitution’ for the convenience of reference.
The Court has listed the matter for hearing on 02-08-2023.
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1. Article 370, Constitution of India.
Better late than never realisation by Shehla Rashid.
Court will keep Article 370 haters can keep dreaming just like they did for demonetization