CJI NV Ramana agrees to consider listing of Article 370 case after matter mentioned citing delimitation exercise in J&K

The case concerning abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution which conferred special status on Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), was mentioned on Monday before Chief Justice of India (CJI) NV Ramana. .The matter was mentioned by Senior Advocate Shekhar Naphade who sought listing of the case citing the delimitation exercise which is going on in J&K. The CJI remarked that he will try to list the case while also stating that there are some issues with bench composition. "This is before 5 judge bench. Give details we will list it. There are some issues with judges and bench composition," the CJI said. .Senior Advocate Naphade appeared for interlocutors, Radha Kumar, Kapil Kak and others. .More than 20 petitions are pending before the top court challenging the Central governments’ August 2019 decision to abrogate Article 370 of the Constitution. By abrogating the Article, the Centre had revoked the special status of the state of Jammu & Kashmir. Subsequently, the State was bifurcated into two Union Territories, the Union Territory of Ladakh and the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir. In March 2020, a 5-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme court had held that there was no need to refer the batch of petitions challenging Article 370 to a 7-judge constitution bench.This ruling had come after a few petitioners sought reference of the case to a 7-judge bench contending that there is a conflict between two judgments of the Supreme Court - Prem Nath Kaul v. State of Jammu & Kashmir and Sampat Prakash v. State of Jammu & Kashmir. Both these judgments were rendered by 5-judge benches and dealt with the interpretation of Article 370.However, the 5-judge bench which was hearing the case, had declined to refer the matter to a larger bench holding that there is no conflict between the two judgments.