BREAKING| Supreme Court To Hear Article 370 Petitions From August 2; Centre Says Its Affidavit On J&K Situation Won't Be Relied To Argue Constitutional Issue

The Supreme Court on Tuesday fixed August 2, 2023 as the starting date for the hearing of a batch of petitions challenging the dilution of Article 370 of the Constitution of India which stripped the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir of its special status. The petitions also challenge the J&K Re-organization Act 2019 which bifurcated J&K into Union Territories of J&K and Ladakh.

Today, the matter was listed for directions to complete the pre-hearing formalities. Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, the presiding judge, said that the matters will be heard day-to-day from August 2, except on Mondays and Fridays. Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, and Surya Kant are the other members of the bench.

During the hearing, Justice Kaul asked if there was any need to file any additional affidavits in the matter, as the issue purely relates to the constitutionality of the decisions. Yesterday, the Union Government had filed an affidavit regarding the present status of Jammu and Kashmir after the abrogation of its special status. Justice Kaul said that now the other side will file a rejoinder affidavit and the process will go on.

Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Union Government, said that the affidavit merely reflects the present situation of the region and no rejoinder to that may be necessary.

CJI Chandrachud said that the Union's latest affidavit will not have any bearing on the merits of the matter relating to the Constitutionality.

"The affidavit of the centre has no bearing on the constitutional question", CJI said. 

Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave, appearing for some of the petitioners, said that the Union's affidavit should be disregarded.  Solicitor General said that the latest affidavit will not be relied on to argue the Constitutional questions. The bench recorded this statement in the order.

"Solicitor General has informed that though the Union has filed an additional affidavit giving its perspective on the post-notification developments, the contents of the affidavit have no bearing on constitutional issues and thus are not to be relied on for that purpose", the bench noted in the order.

The bench directed that all written submissions and compilations should be filed by July 27, 2023. Advocates S Prasanna and Kanu Agarwal were nominated as the nodal counsel to prepare the compilations from the sides of petitioners and the respondents respectively.

Senior Advocate Raju Ramachandran informed the bench that Mr. Shah Faesel and Ms. Shehla Rashid do not want to continue as the petitioners and requested that their names be deleted from the array of parties. Ms. Shehla was represented by Advocate Charu Mathur. The bench passed an order to that affect and said that the causetitle will be amended. Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan suggested that the causetitle of the matter be changed as "In Re : Article 370 petitions". The bench agreed and passed an order to that effect. Advocate ML Sharma, objected to this move, saying that he filed the first petition and notice was issued first on his petition. However, the bench rejected his objection.

These petitions had been posted today for the first time after March 2, 2020, when another constitution bench ruled that it would not be necessary to refer the matter to a seven-judge bench.

Just yesterday, the Central government filed a fresh affidavit in the matter and stated that its decision to dilute Article 370 in 2019 revoking the special status of Jammu and Kashmir has brought an ‘unprecedented era development, progress, security and stability to the region’. The Centre defended its move by stating that in the past 3 years, schools, colleges, universities, hospitals and other public institutions have been functioning without any strikes or disturbances. "The earlier practice of daily hartals, strikes, stone pelting and bandhs are a thing of the past now” it has been stated. The Centre also stressed in its affidavit that life has returned to normalcy after over three decades of turmoil. Some examples that the Centre provided of normalcy in the Union Territory include formation of a duly elected 3-tier Panchayati Raj System in Jammu and Kashmir, reduction of ‘law and order events’ by 97.2% and ‘terrorist initiated instances’ by 45.2% in 2022 as compared to 2019, dropping of terrorist recruitment from 199 in 2018 to 12 in 2023 among other things. 

Case Title: Shah Faesal And Ors. v Union Of India And Anr. W.P.(C) No. 1099/2019 PIL-W and connected matters

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