JK News Today
Jammu, September 05: The Supreme Court on Tuesday reserved verdict in the challenge to the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution. The Article was scrapped on August 5, 2019.
The Article 370 grated special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir and also special rights and privileges to the permanent residents of the state.
A five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud heard extensive arguments by both the petitioners and the government over a span of sixteen days.
Several petitions have been filed challenging the Presidential Orders of August 5 and 6, 2019 as well as the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 (2019 Act) on the ground that they are unconstitutional.
The petitioners argued that the abrogation was an attack on federalism and a fraud played on the Constitution. They also pointed out that the 2019 Act is unconstitutional since Article 3 does not give the Parliament powers to downgrade federal democratic States into a less representative form such as a Union Territory.
On the contrary, the Union government contended that the abrogation was necessary to completely integrate J&K into the Union of India and that elections in the valley would be conducted as soon as normalcy returns on the ground.
The Bench also raised several pertinent questions during the proceedings — whether the dissolution of the State Constituent Assembly could render Article 370 beyond abrogation, whether the provision forms a part of the Basic Structure of the Constitution, and whether the ambit of judicial review prevents the court from assessing the ‘wisdom’ behind the Union government’s decision to abrogate Article 370.
The apex court had taken up this case for hearing after a delay of almost four years. In March 2020, when the Court last heard the matter, the question was about referring the case to a larger bench, which a five-judge bench presided by Justice N.V. Ramana refused. The case was referred to a five-judge Constitution Bench in 2019 by a three-judge bench led by former CJI Rajan Gogoi.
