Article 370 Case : Live Updates From Supreme Court [Day 11]

SG Mehta: Article 35A was created, which is a part of Constitution of India, only to be applied to the State of J&K.

SG: The effect of 370 with 367- is that by an administrative act of the President and the Govt of the State, any part of the Constitution can be amended, can be altered, can even be destroyed and not applied, and new provisions can even be created in Constitution of India.

SG: Despite full knowledge that Article 370 is a part of the Constitution, despite having accepted in the Constituent Assembly debates of J&K that it is temporary, they chose not to make any recommendation under sub-article (3). That is a separate link. I'm flagging it here.

SG Mehta: Whenever a word in Article 370 becomes otiose for that post not being in existence, it is immediately replaced by its successor. Sadar-i-riyasat is replaced by Governor etc.

SG Mehta: It's in the segment of my arguments...

CJI: Then we will deal with it when we reach there.

CJI: But more importantly, once A 238 makes certain provisions of Constitution inapplicable to Part III states, esp J&K, which would be brought into force by the Constituent Assembly framing a Constitution, then it may be difficult to purely call it a legislative assembly.

CJI: That would be a problem for two reasons- That's not how Article 370(2) refers to it as. It refers to it as Constituent Assembly of State.

CJI: In your note, you have contended that the Constituent Assembly of J&K was in the nature of a legislative assembly and not a Constituent Assembly. That, strictly speaking, there may be a problem.

SG Mehta: I'll show that J&K constitution was subordinate to Indian Constitution.

CJI: Likewise you said that in the Preamble amendment of 1976 was applied with modifications. So secularism and socialism amendment was never adopted in J&K.

SG Mehta: Yes, even the word "integrity" was not applied.