Supreme court’s five-judge constitution bench has on Friday resumed the hearing of the petitions challenging the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution that granted special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu Kashmir.
Over 20 petitions were filed in India’s apex court to challenge the central government’s 2019 decision to abrogate Article 370 of the Constitution/. The erstwhile State was subsequently bifurcated into two Union Territories- Jammu Kashmir and Ladakh.
The Court began hearing the petitions on August 2 on a day to day basis to check the legality of the “unliteral” abrogation of Articles 370 and 35a.
On August 24, the Central government began its arguments in Supreme Court to defend its 2019 move to abrogate Article 370 of the Constitution.
The Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta, who represented the Central government, invoked Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and stated that the first Prime Minister had said that India would not recognize rulers of princely States who joined India as having any ‘divine’ rights.
During the hearings, the Supreme Court orally observed that Article 35A of the Constitution, which was repealed in 2019, curtailed certain “fundamental rights” of persons domiciled in the rest of India.
Kapil Sibal on 31 August asked the centre to not make rhetorical political statements because then the defendants would have to counter these claims and the live proceedings would be a problem in that case to which the Court told both the parties that the “development” that the Government claims has happened post Aug’ 19 will have no bearing on the constitutional arguments.
Following the arguments of the central Government, the petitioners will get a time for rejoinder. The central Government is expected to conclude its arguments on Friday.
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