Article 370 Case : Live Updates From Supreme Court [Day 12]

Justice Kaul: Suppose you had not carved out Ladakh? Then the power would be to convert the whole state into a UT.

CJI: Does clause (a) contemplate a situation where the entire territory of a state can be turned into a UT?

SG: There are two- J&K, and Ladakh. And there is nothing that prohibits that.

SG Mehta reads Article 3.

CJI: So wherever you read State, you read UT. Let's read clause (1) in that light.

SG: I will show the steps taken to reach that stage.

CJI: The UT here is not intended to be a permanent territory?

SG: No!

CJI: How impermanent is this? When are you going to have elections?

Justice Kaul: What is the nature of the exercise of that power? Is it permanent, temporary, what is it?

CJI: Does parliament have the power to convert an existing Indian state into a UT? If it does have that power, how do we read Article 3?

SG: The youth which used to be employed by the interests not amenable to India- terror groups etc, are gainfully employed. There is a blue print and I'll show that blue print.

SG: After this decision, there were elections which took place of district development councils. There are 34000 elected people. Democracy is going to the grassroots. There are large number of schemes introduced.

SG: There are several considerations - one of the considerations is how to bring youth in mainstream. What we see today is a result of blue print we have