After 3 Years, Article 370 Issue Back In Supreme Court On Tuesday

India: 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, will be taken up by the Supreme Court tomorrow after a gap of over three years.

A five-Judge Constitution Bench will take care of the preliminaries tomorrow, 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.

Earlier today, 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.

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.