SC To Announce Its Judgement Related To Article 370 Abrogation Case

The Supreme Court (SC.,) is going to announce its orders regarding the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir.

On the 2nd of March,  the SC would announce if the petitions filed against the abrogation of Article 370 would be referred to a bench of 7 judges of the SC or not. 

On the 5th of August 2019, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, announced to abrogate Article 370, which provided special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

Recently, on the 23rd of January, 2020 a bench of five judges headed by Justice N.V. Ramana reserved its order on this issue.   The bench comprising N.V. Ramana, S.K. Kaul, R. Subhash Reddy, B.R. Gavai and Surya Kant reserved its order and announced to refer the matter to a larger bench of the SC judges.

Several petitioners including lawyers, non government organisations (NGOs,) Journalists’ associations, Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar Association and others challenged the Centre’s decision to scrap Article 370.

Today, the 2nd of March, 2020 the SC would take a final call regarding the demand of referring the matter to a larger bench of SC judges and would issue an order for the same.

The reason to ask for a reference to a larger bench came after, two judgements of the SC conflicted with each other in year 1959 and 1970 related to the same Article 370 issue.

However, Attorney General K.K. Venugopal, who is representing the Central Government in the SC opposed the decision to refer the matter to a larger bench.  Mr. Venugopal said, “the abrogation of provisions of Article 370, has now become a ‘fait accompli’ leaving the sole option to accept the change.”

Justifying his point, Mr. Venugopal said the earlier judgements in the Prem Nath Kaul versus Jammu and Kashmir did not deal with Article 370, but the question whether  the Maharaja of Kashmir, had the legislative power or not.

Speaking about the 1970, Sampat Prakash versus Jammu and Kashmir case, Mr. Venugopal had said though it dealt with some aspects of Article 370, it was not conflicting with the Prem Nath Kaul’s case as that was a separate and different issue.

While K.K. Venugopal is representing the Central Government, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta is appearing for the Jammu and Kashmir administration and favoured the arguments of Mr. Venugopal.

The SC hearing regarding the Jammu and Kashmir matter is scheduled to begin shortly.