NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday said it will list petitions for a hearing challenging the abrogation of Article 370 and the bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir in the month of July. A bench headed by Chief Justice of India NV Ramana said it will try to list a bunch of petitions challenging the validity of the law in the month of July.
Senior advocates P Chidambaram and Shekhar Naphade mentioned the petitions before the court for early hearing. “This is the Article 370 matter… the delimitation is also going on,” Naphade told the bench. “Let me see after vacation. This is a five-judge matter. Give details we will list them. There are some issues with judges and bench composition,” the CJI said.
Various petitions are pending before the top court challenging the validity of the law scrapping Article 370 of the constitution and special status to Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcating the state into two Union Territories. Later, some petitions were filed against the government’s action for delimitation in accordance with the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act, 2019. These petitions said sweeping changes are being brought by the Centre that impacts the rights of a large number of people. “Despite the fact that the petition is pending before the Supreme Court since 2019, the central government has taken some irreversible actions,” petitions says. Petitions have stated the Centre has constituted a delimitation commission to mark boundaries in the territory for all the constituencies before an assembly election can be held.
On August 5 2019, the Central government announced its decision to revoke the special status of Jammu and Kashmir granted under Article 370 and split the region into two Union territories. A five-judge Bench in March 2020 had declined to refer to a larger 7-judge bench a batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Centre’s decision to abrogate provisions of Article 370 on August 5, saying there were no reasons to refer the matter to a larger bench.
A number of petitions have been filed in the top court including those of private individuals, lawyers, activists and politicians and political parties challenging the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, which splits Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories — Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
