Supreme Court agrees to early listing of pleas on Article 370

New Delhi, December 14

The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it would consider a plea for early listing of petitions challenging the Centre’s decision to nullify Article 370 which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

“We will examine and give a date,” a Bench led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud told the counsel for intervenor Radha Kumar.

The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, which divided the state into two UTs – J&K and Ladakh, has already been acted upon. The changes came into effect on October 31, 2019, after being notified in the official gazette.

“The Supreme Court can always turn the clock back,” a five-judge Constitution Bench had said on October 1, 2020, when it took up the petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the J&K Reorganisation Act 2019 and the August 5 Presidential Orders nullifying Article 370.

Since then, a delimitation exercise has been completed in J&K and the number of seats increased from 83 to 90 (excluding 24 seats in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir).

There are about 24 petitions challenging the Presidential Order nullifying Article 370, including those by Delhi-based advocate ML Sharma, J&K-based lawyer Shakir Shabir, National Conference MPs Mohammad Akbar Lone and Justice Hasnain Masoodi (retd).

There is another PIL filed by former interlocutor for J&K Radha Kumar, Air Vice-Marshal Kapil Kak (retd), Major General Ashok Mehta (retd), former IAS officers Hindal Haidar Tyabji, Amitabha Pande and Gopal Pillai, who have urged the top court to declare the August 5 Presidential Orders “unconstitutional, void and inoperative”.