The Supreme Court will continue hearing today the cases challenging the Centre's 2019 decisions to dilute Article 370 of the Constitution leading to the scrapping fo the special status of Jammu and Kashmir.Today is the 7th day of hearing before a Constitution Bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justice SK Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna, Justice BR Gavai and Justice Surya Kant. So...
The Supreme Court will continue hearing today the cases challenging the Centre's 2019 decisions to dilute Article 370 of the Constitution leading to the scrapping fo the special status of Jammu and Kashmir.
Today is the 7th day of hearing before a Constitution Bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justice SK Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna, Justice BR Gavai and Justice Surya Kant. So far, Senior Advocates Kapil Sibal, Gopal Subramanium and Zaffar Ahmed Shah have completed their arguments on behalf of the petitioners.
Senior Advocates Rajeev Dhavan and Dushyant Dave argued yesterday.
Track the live-updates from today's hearing here :
The bench rises for the day. Arguments to continue on Tuesday (22.08.2023)
CJI: We would like to conclude this side's submission by Tuesday. Because frankly we have so much information from this side...
Dwivedi: The other states not only acceded before 15th August, 1947, they signed as a precondition that they'll sign the standstill agreements also which covers the matters of local concerns. After that, they acceded to UOI.
Dwivedi: IoA would not amount to surrender of sovereignty unless there is a merger agreement as happened in case of other states.
Dwivedi: So people of the state will now only have one legislature both for local and the national issues. Their right to be governed under a dual polity goes for a toss.
Dwivedi: This is a case where the level of autonomy is stupendously raised. Nevertheless, it is a part of federal structure. But by reducing the state into UT, we're bring it under 246(4)
Dwivedi: This results in the destruction of dual polity and demolition of the federal structure. And noone can say that J&K didn't satisfy the requirement of federal structure.
Dwivedi: Because there has to be "dual polity". Dual polity is that where for local issues, it is local politics and for larger issues, it is the parliament.
Dwivedi: Though UTs are part of territory of India as per Art 1, as far as federal structure is concerned, UTs are not a part of the federal structure.
Dwivedi: Art 1 says that India is a union of states and refers to Schedule I. Please see the schedule. It specifies the states in Articles 1 and 4.