Article 370: Supreme Court declines urgent hearing

The Supreme Court today declined an urgent hearing in the petition filed by Advocate ML Sharma challenging the Presidential Notification on Article 370 of the Constitution .

. The matter was mentioned today before Justice NV Ramana since CJI Ranjan Gogoi and Justice SA Bobde are sitting in Constitution Bench.

. Sharma said that the matter could be taken to United Nations and “ we might lose Kashmir “. He, therefore, prayed that the matter should be taken up urgently.

. Justice Ramana, however, declined asking,

. “ Can UN stay Indian Constitution’s amendment? “

. He then asked Sharma to clear defects and matter will be listed in due course.

. Another petition filed by Tehseen Poonawalla , praying for the lifting of the ongoing curfew in Jammu & Kashmir was also mentioned today.

. Justice Ramana said that he will place the matter before the Chief Justice.

. Advocate ML Sharma , who has filed a number of Public Interest Litigation petitions in the Supreme Court, moved the Court challenging the government’s move to amend the Constitution of India by way of a Presidential order. In his petition, Sharma has thus prayed,

. “ Be pleased to issue a writ of mandamus to Respondent no. 1 (Union of India) or quashing of an impugned notification G.S.R.551(E) dated 05.08.2019 for amending Article 367 of the Constitution of India being illegal, unconstitutional, and void ab initio and ultra vires to the Constitution of India to provide complete justice.”

. The Constitution (Application to Jammu & Kashmir) Order, 2019 was passed under Article 370(1) of the Constitution of India. It amends Article 367 which lays down the rules of interpretation of the Constitution of India by inserting a new clause which applies to the State of Jammu & Kashmir.

. Article 370 was a temporary Article in the Constitution and the power to abrogate or modify it was conferred with the President under clause (3) of the Article. However, a precondition to the same was concurrence by the Constituent Assembly of the State of Jammu & Kashmir on the decision to abrogate or modify the Article. The Constituent Assembly had, however, ceased to exist as far back as in the 1950s.

. The Presidential Order under challenge here, amended Article 367 to replace the reference to Constituent Assembly under Article 370(3) to mean Legislative Assembly.

. This Order also paved the way for the introduction of the Jammu & Kashmir Reorganisation Bill 2019 which aims to bifurcate the State of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories – Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir, and Union Territory of Ladakh.

Article 370: Supreme Court declines urgent hearing

Murali Krishnan

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