Supreme Court Refuses To Refer Pleas Against Article 370 To Larger Bench
Supreme Court on Jan. 23 reserved its order on whether the pleas against Article 370 would be referred to a seven-judge bench.
The Supreme Court refused to refer a batch of petitions challenging the central government’s move to abrogate provisions of Article 370 to a seven-judge bench.
A five-judge bench headed by Justice NV Ramanna pronounced the order without going into the merits of the challenge.
On Aug. 5, 2019, India introduced a resolution to amend Article 370 of the Indian Constitution that gave Jammu and Kashmir administrative autonomy. The amendment also sought to split the state—Jammu and Kashmir as a union territory with legislative powers and Ladakh as a union territory without legislative powers.
After this, several petitions were filed challenging the validity of removal of the special status to Jammu and Kashmir. The issue of reference to a larger bench stemmed from two petitioners—Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar Association and People’s Union of Civil Liberties—arguing that the two judgments of the top court in the cases of Prem Nath Kaul versus State of Jammu and Kashmir, and Sampat Prakash versus State of Jammu and Kashmir were in direct conflict of each other.
The five-judge bench hasn’t yet fixed a date for the hearing of the case.