NEW DELHI: A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud will take up for hearing a batch of pleas challenging the abrogation of Article 370 on July 21, four years after the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir was stripped of its special status and bifurcated into two Union Territories.
According to a notice issued on the apex court website on Monday, the five-judge bench, also comprising justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna, B R Gavai and Surya Kant, will take up the pleas for passing directions.
The pleas were last listed on March 2, 2020 when the Constitution bench had held that there was no need to refer the matter to a larger bench. However, the matter was not listed again up until now. Many petitions were filed before the Supreme Court praying that the Presidential Orders issued under Article 370, repealing the special status of the Jammu and Kashmir, and the J&K (Reorganisation) Act, 2019 be declared as unconstitutional. One of the pleas averred that it was “striking at the heart of the principles on which the State of J&K had integrated”.
The hearing had commenced on December 10, 2019 — four months after the repeal of the J&K special status — before a Constitution Bench comprising Justices N V Ramana (now retired), S K Kaul, R Subhash Reddy (now retired), B R Gavai and Surya Kant. Some petitioners wanted the matter referred to a seven-judge bench, but the apex court disagreed.
CJI, Justice Khanna in new bench In the previous bench which heard the matter, judges N V Ramana and Subhash Reddy have retired. CJI D Y Chandrachud and Justice Sanjiv Khanna are the new members in the latest bench
