Supreme Court Upholds Abrogation of Article 370

The Supreme Court upheld the Centre’s decision to abrogate Article 370, which granted special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. The Supreme Court also directed the Election...

Ruby Thakur
December 12, 2023
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The Supreme Court upheld the Centre’s decision to abrogate Article 370, which granted special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. The Supreme Court also directed the Election Commission of India to hold Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections by September 30, 2024.

Supreme Court Upholds Abrogation of Article 370

Why In News

The Supreme Court upheld the Centre’s decision to abrogate Article 370, which granted special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.
The Supreme Court also directed the Election Commission of India to hold Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections by September 30, 2024.

A Constitution Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai and Surya Kant will deliver its verdict in a batch of petitions challenging the Central government’s 2019 move to revoke Article 370 which conferred special status on the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir.

Petition

Over 20 petitions were filed before the Supreme Court challenging the Central government’s 2019 decision to abrogate Article 370 of the Constitution, which resulted in the revocation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status.
The erstwhile State was subsequently bifurcated into two Union Territories.

The petitioners, represented by a battery of senior lawyers including Kapil Sibal, Gopal Subramanium, Rajeev Dhavan, Dushyant Dave and Gopal Sankaranarayanan, submitted that the Union of India used brute majority in Parliament to issue a series of executive orders through the President to divide a full-fledged State into the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
The petitioners termed it an attack on federalism and a fraud on the Constitution.

SC Verdict

CJI DY Chandrachud said that Jammu and Kashmir held no internal sovereignty after accession to India.
He said there was no prima facie case that the President’s 2019 orders were mala file (in bad faith) or extraneous exercise of power.
While the court said the reorganisation of the erstwhile state into Union Territories in 2019 was a temporary move, it directed the Centre for the restoration of statehood and for Legislative Assembly elections to be held.

CJI Chandrachud reading out the judgment said every decision taken by the Centre on behalf of a state under proclamation can’t be subject to a legal challenge and it will lead to the administration of the state to a standstill.
Justice Kaul recommended in his concurring opinion that a Truth and Reconciliation Commission should be set up in J&K, for an acknowledgement of the acts of alleged rights violations in the region.

The court also mentioned that the argument of petitioners that the Union government cannot take actions of irreversible consequences in the state during Presidential rule is not acceptable.
The Supreme Court on Monday refused to rule on the validity of President’s Rule in Jammu and Kashmir – imposed in December 2018 – since it was not specifically challenged by petitioners as part of an overall contesting of the scrapping of special status, under Article 370, to the former state.

Conclusion

The Supreme Court ruling can be seen as a big boost for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Jammu and Kashmir lost its special status in August 2019 under Article 370 of the Constitution, months after the BJP won elections by a landslide and the prime minister made good on a key election pledge.

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Ruby Thakur

General Studies Lecturer SSBCrackExams, BSc In PCM, Trained Students For State Services Exams. Expertise in Geography ,Polity & Current Affairs. Love Travelling.