SC to hear petitions challenging scrapping of Article 370 after Dussehra vacation

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday said it will list the pleas challenging the Centre’s decision to abrogate the provisions of Article 370, which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir, after the Dussehra vacation.

A counsel contended before a bench headed by Chief Justice U.U. Lalit that the petitions were supposed to get listed after the summer vacation, but they were not listed for hearing.

The bench, also comprising Justices Indira Banerjee and S. Ravindra Bhat, told the counsel that the petitions will be listed.

A bench headed by former Chief Justice N.V. Ramana in April this year had said the court will list the matter after the summer vacation.

A new five-judge bench would have to be re-constituted to hear the petitions, since two judges on the bench — Justice Ramana and Justice R. Subhash Reddy — have retired.

A batch of petitions have challenged Centre’s decision to abrogate provisions of Article 370 and the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, which split Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories — Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.

The Centre, by abrogating the provisions of Article 370, had revoked the special status of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, and subsequently, it was bifurcated into two union territories — Union Territory of Ladakh and Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

A five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court, in March 2020, held that there was no need to refer the batch of petitions challenging Article 370 abrogation to a seven-judge constitution bench.

-IANS