CJI Chandrachud-led Constitution Bench to hear petitions against nullification of Article 370 on July 11

Satya Prakash

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New Delhi, July 3

The Supreme Court on Monday notified a new five-judge Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud to hear petitions challenging the Presidential Orders nullifying Article 370 of the Constitution and bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories.

The five-judge Constitution Bench – which also included Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Justice Sanjiv Khanna, Justice BR Gavai and Justice Surya Kant – will take up the matter on July 11 for issuing directions to complete procedural formalities and fix modalities of the hearing.

The setting up of the new Constitution Bench came almost four years after nullification of Article 370 of the Constitution – which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

The top court had on August 28, 2019 referred petitions challenging Presidential Orders nullifying Article 370 of the Constitution and bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories to a five-judge Constitution Bench.

The petitions were originally assigned to a Constitution Bench led by Justice NV Ramana (since retired) in 2019 by the then CJI Ranjan Gogoi. Besides Justice Ramana, Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, R Subhash Reddy (Retd), B R Gavai, and Surya Kant were part of the Bench. The Bench had to be reconstituted due to retirement of CJI Ramana and Justice Reddy.

Earlier, Justice Ramana-led Constitution Bench had on March 2, 2020 refused to refer petitions challenging the nullification of Article 370 to a seven-judge Constitution Bench, saying there is no contradiction in its earlier verdicts in cases of Prem Nath Kaul and Sampat Prakash.

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

Since then, a delimitation exercise has been completed in the UT of Jammu and Kashmir and the number of seats increased from 83 to 90 (excluding 24 seats in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir).

There are around two dozen petitions challenging the Presidential Order nullifying Article 370, including those by Delhi-based advocate ML Sharma, Jammu and Kashmir-based lawyer Shakir Shabir, National Conference Lok Sabha MPs Mohammad Akbar Lone and Justice Hasnain Masoodi (Retd), bureaucrat-turned-politician Shah Faesal and his party colleague Shehla Rashid.

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

As the petitions didn’t get listed after March 2, 2020, former Jammu and Kashmir MLA Mohammed Yousuf Tarigami had moved the Supreme Court seeking an early hearing of petitions challenging the validity of abrogation of special status of the erstwhile state.