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5-judge SC bench led by CJI to hear Art 370 pleas
The Supreme Court has set up a new constitution bench to hear petitions related to Article 370 of the Constitution, which granted special status to Jammu & Kashmir. The bench, headed by Chief Justice Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, will begin proceedings on July 11 after a gap of over three years. One of the petitions to be heard is from Shah Faesal, a bureaucrat who initially challenged the abrogation of Article 370 but later withdrew his petition. The case is expected to issue procedural orders for a future hearing date.
The Supreme Court on Monday notified the setting up of a new constitution bench, comprising its first five judges, to take up a clutch of petitions pertaining to Article 370 of the Constitution, which conferred special status on Jammu & Kashmir but was abrogated in August 2019 through a presidential order. The matter will come up in the top court on July 11 after a gap of more than three years.
The new bench is headed by Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud and includes justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai and Surya Kant.
The case has been listed for directions on July 11 when the court is expected to issue procedural orders to make the matter for hearing on a future date. On July 11, the bench is also likely to take up a plea by Shah Faesal, a bureaucrat who was initially among the petitioners challenging the abrogation of Article 370, but later filed a request for withdrawing his petition. Faesal resigned from service in protest in 2019 to float a political party in J&K. However, his resignation was not accepted by the government, and he withdrew it later.
Faesal’s decision to withdraw the petition came soon after he was taken back into the Indian Administrative Service in April 2022 and was appointed deputy secretary in the Union ministry of culture. In his plea filed on April 29, 2022, Faesal told the court that he does not wish to be part of a petition questioning the Centre’s decision to end the special status of J&K since he wishes to pursue public service without the baggage of political activism.
The bunch of petitions challenging the abrogation of Article 370 was last listed in March 2020, when a five-judge bench declined to refer the matter to a larger bench. The reference was sought on the grounds that two previous judgments of the apex court were conflicting with each other, but the bench did not agree with this contention.
At that time, it was noticed by the bench that there was also an older batch of petitions pending in the Supreme Court that challenged the validity of Articles 370 and 35A, which accorded special status to J&K. It pointed out that all the matters related to Article 370 should be preferably heard together.
A plethora of petitions, filed by parliamentarians from the National Conference party, Kashmiri citizens, former bureaucrats and various organisations laid the challenge to the abrogation of Article 370 soon after the presidential order in August 2019.
While some petitioners brought up the requirement of consent from the constituent assembly for abrogation of Article 370, others questioned the validity of the President’s rule that was in effect when the abrogation was made. A few of these pleas went back to the Instrument of Accession, while some highlighted the Supreme Court’s ruling of 2018 that observed that Article 370 had gained a status of permanence.
Many petitions have also challenged the Jammu and Kashmir State Reorganization Act, by which the state was bifurcated into two Union territories with effect from October 30, 2019.
On August 28, 2019, the Supreme Court issued notices on the pleas despite resistance from the central government, which argued that Article 370 had international and cross-border implications. The Centre had at that time argued that it was a sensitive matter and whatever happens in the country over it would be raked up at the United Nations. While issuing notices, the court referred the matter to a five-judge constitution bench.
In last December, chief justice Chandrachud had agreed to consider a plea for early listing of the case. Earlier, similar requests were made before the first court in April and September, too, but the matter was not listed since a new five-judge bench needed to be constituted.
