New Delhi:
A clutch of petitions challenging the scrapping of Article 370, which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir, and the state's bifurcation into two Union territories, have been taken up by the Supreme Court today after a gap of over three years.
A five-Judge Constitution Bench will take care of the preliminaries, issuing procedural directions about filing of documents and written submissions. It will also name a date for the hearing to begin.
The Bench will comprise Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai and Surya Kant.
The court is expected to examine whether parliament could have scrapped Article 370 without the consent of the people of Jammu and Kashmir and whether its bifurcation into two Union territories was constitutional.
On Monday, the Centre filed an additional affidavit where it said the move to scrap Article 370 in August 2019 has led to an "unprecedented era of peace" in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
"Jammu and Kashmir was facing the brunt of terrorism for the last three decades. To curb it, the only way was to remove Article 370," the Union Home Ministry said in the affidavit.
"Today, all necessary institutions including schools, colleges, industries are running normally in the Valley. Industrial development is happening and people who lived in fear are living peacefully," the affidavit read.
The case was last heard by a different five-judge bench in March 2020. In that hearing, the bench had refused to refer the matter to a larger, seven-judge bench.
Article 370 was scrapped in August 2019 through a series of legislative and executive decisions after which parliament passed the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act to bifurcate the state.
The process was undertaken after the imposition of President's Rule, when the state assembly was no longer functioning. The petitions have argued that scrapping of Article 370 during President's Rrule through a Presidential proclamation is a violation of the democratic rights of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
Jammu and Kashmir came under President's Rule after the BJP pulled out of the ruling alliance with Mehbooba Mufti's People's Democratic Party in June 2018. No assembly election has been held in the region since.
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