Will consider listing after vacation: CJI on petitions against nullification of Article 370

Satya Prakash

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New Delhi, April 25

Petitions challenging the validity of nullification of Article 370 could be taken up for hearing after summer vacation, the Supreme Court indicated on Monday.

“Let me see… after vacation. This is a five-judge matter. I will have to reconstitute bench etc…”

A Bench led by Chief Justice of India NV Ramana told senior advocate Shekhar Naphade after he submitted on behalf of a petitioner that the matter needed an urgent hearing in view of the ongoing delimitation exercise in Jammu and Kashmir.

“This is the Article 370 matter. The delimitation is also going on,” Naphade, representing interveners Radha Kumar and Kapil Kak submitted.

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. In March 2020, it had refused to refer it to a larger Bench of seven judges.

The petitions were originally referred to a Constitution Bench led by Justice NV Ramana in 2019 by the then CJI Ranjan Gogoi.

Besides Justice Ramana, Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, R Subhash Reddy (since retired), B R Gavai, and Surya Kant were part of the bench.

Now, the five-judge Bench will have to be reconstituted in view of Justice Reddy’s retirement in January this year.

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.

“The Supreme Court can always turn the clock back,” a five-judge Constitution Bench had said this on 1 October 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 that gave special status to Jammu and 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”.

Former Jammu and Kashmir MLA Mohammed Yousuf Tarigami had moved the Supreme Court in August last year seeking an early hearing of petitions challenging the validity of abrogation of special status of the erstwhile state.

Contending that despite the pendency of petitions challenging the nullification of Article 370 and bifurcation of the state into two union territories, the Centre has taken the several irreversible steps, Tarigami had said if the matters were not heard urgently, grave injustice will be caused.

Earlier, the Sajad Gani Lone-led Jammu and Kashmir People’s Conference (JKPC) had in November 2020 demanded an early hearing of petitions challenging the nullification of Articles 370 and 35A of the Constitution.