Article 370 & 35A: Supreme Court gives Centre 4 weeks to reply on 10 petitions
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday gave the Centre four weeks’ time to file its response to 10 petitions challenging the scrapping of Articles 370 and 35A of the Constitution denuding J&K of its special status and bifurcating the state into two Union territories.
Fixing November 14 for hearing of the petitions, a five-judge Constitution Bench comprising Justices N.V. Ramana, Sanjay Kishan Kaul, R. Subhash Reddy, B.R. Gavai and Surya Kant gave the petitioners a week’s time to file their rejoinder to the Centre’s reply.
The court further directed its registry not to entertain any further petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the presidential notification denuding J&K of its special status and the bifurcation of the state. The court’s direction to its registry not to entertain any further petitions came as Justice Ramana, noting the spate of requests for filing fresh petitions and intervention applications, observed that this way there would be “one lakh” petitions.
The court gave the Centre four weeks’ time as senior counsel Raju Ramachandran, Gopal Shankarnarayanan, Chander Uday Singh and others noted that on October 31, the state will be bifurcated into two UT’s and expressed the fear that the issue before the court would become infructuous.
At this, both Justices Reddy and Gavai said how could they hear the matter without getting a response from the Centre. Justice Ramana said that they can consider the reasonable time to be given to the Centre for filing the reply.
“How can we in such a matter, involving serious issues, proceed without a counter (reply from the Centre)”, Justice Subhash Reddy asked, brushing aside objections by senior lawyers appearing for the petitioners, with Justice Gavai also saying: “How can we hear without counter (government’s response)?”
Opposing the Centre’s plea for four weeks to file its reply, senior counsel Raju Ramachandran recalled the August 28, 2019, order by the bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi. He said by the August 28 order, the court had asked the Centre to exchange pleadings, and now after over a month the government was still seeking four weeks’ time to file its reply to petitions challenging its action in the trouble-torn state.
Pressing for an urgent hearing at an early date, senior counsel Raju Ramachandran noted “difficulty” of the “notified” date of October 31 when the state would be bifurcated into two Union territories — Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.
“What we are saying is kindly protect us. It (the situation) may not become irreversible”, senior counsel Gopal Shankarnarayanan said, with another lawyer pointing out that the “delimitation” exercise would become irreversible and the courts cannot interfere once the delimitation had taken place.
“If your petitions are allowed... can’t we not put the clock back”, asked Justice Kaul, and said “it is always there”, as Mr Shankarnarayan urged the court to say that whatever steps are taken by the government in the course of the hearing would be subject to the outcome of the hearing of the petitions before the court.
At this, Justice Ramana asked attorney-general K.K. Venugopal if the government wanted four weeks’ time file its reply. The attorney-general told the court there were 10 writ petitions, each raising different issues, and each of them had to be replied to, and for which the government needed four weeks’ time.
Granting four weeks, Justice Ramana in his order said no further time would be given to the Centre.
The 10 petitioner who moved the court challenging the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A included Mohammed Yousuf Tarigami, CPI(M) leader in J&K, the Sajjad Lone-headed Jammu and Kashmir People’s Conference, Lok Sabha MPs Mohammad Akbar Lone and Justice Hasnain Masoodi (Retd), representing the National Conference.
Mr Lone is a former Speaker of the J&K Assembly and Mr Masoodi a retired judge of the Jammu and Kashmir high court. In 2015, he had ruled that Article 370 was a permanent feature of the Constitution.
Besides Mr Tarigami, Mr Lone and Mr Masoodi, the others who have moved the court include Rifat Ara Bhat, Shakir Shabbir, Soayib Qureshi, Inder Salim, Radha Kumar, Shah Faesal (bureaucrat-politician), Muzzafar Iqbal Khan and Manohar Lal Sharma.
Mr Manohar Lal Sharma was on the receiving end of the court as Justice Kaul chided him saying there was nothing in his petition. There were no prayers, grounds or questions of law except that it was filed within 72 hours of J&K being denuded of its special status on August 5.
Mr Sharma urged the court to see the original letter on the accession of J&K to India. He said in an earlier hearing that this letter wasn’t placed before the court.
At this, Justice Ramana said the judges would call for all the documents that would be needed to decide the matter before the court.
