Express News Service
NEW DELHI: Following a marathon hearing for 16 days, the Supreme Court on Tuesday reserved its verdict in a batch of pleas challenging the Centre’s decision to abrogate Article 370 of the Constitution and scrapping special status granted to the state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).
“We must end it with a vote of thanks to the bar,” a five-judge bench, headed by CJI DY Chandrachud, said after it heard the lawyers for the petitioners in their final submissions. The bench also included Justices SK Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai and Surya Kant.
The bench while reserving verdict said that it would analyse Lok Sabha MP Mohammad Akbar Lone’s affidavit swearing allegiance to the Constitution and recognising J&K as India’s integral part.
Lone in the affidavit filed in compliance with its September 4 order on Tuesday had said he has taken oath in Parliament to owe allegiance to the Constitution and uphold India’s unity and integrity. “That I reiterate the oath taken while being sworn in as Member of Parliament to preserve and uphold the provisions of the Constitution of India and to protect the territorial integrity of the nation,” the affidavit stated.
Taking objection to Lone’s affidavit, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta while urging the court to make some observations regarding his conduct said, “This is adding insult to injury to the nation. Your lordships may read what is not written.”
The petitioners were represented through a battery of senior advocates Kapil Sibal, Gopal Subramanium, Zaffar Shah, Rajeev Dhavan, Dushyant Dave, Chander Uday Singh, Dinesh Dwivedi, Shekhar Naphade, Nitya Ramakrishnan, Gopal Sankaranarayanan, Menaka Guruswamy, Prashanto Chandra Sen and Sanjay Parikh. They questioned the legislature’s power to recommend abrogation of Article 370 as per the J&K Constitution and argued that the President’s rule could not have been invoked for decimating democracy.
It was also argued that Article 370 had assumed permanence and was no longer a ‘temporary’ provision post the dissolution of the J&K Constituent Assembly in 1957. “Parliament had no power under Article 3 of the Constitution to convert a state into a Union Territory,” it was argued.
Supporting the abrogation, the Centre through Attorney General for India R Venkataramani, Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta, Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj, ASG Vikramjeet Banerjee and Advocate Kanu Agarwal argued that its continued existence could not be seen as a distortion of its original purpose.
NEW DELHI: Following a marathon hearing for 16 days, the Supreme Court on Tuesday reserved its verdict in a batch of pleas challenging the Centre’s decision to abrogate Article 370 of the Constitution and scrapping special status granted to the state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).
“We must end it with a vote of thanks to the bar,” a five-judge bench, headed by CJI DY Chandrachud, said after it heard the lawyers for the petitioners in their final submissions. The bench also included Justices SK Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai and Surya Kant.
The bench while reserving verdict said that it would analyse Lok Sabha MP Mohammad Akbar Lone’s affidavit swearing allegiance to the Constitution and recognising J&K as India’s integral part.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });
Lone in the affidavit filed in compliance with its September 4 order on Tuesday had said he has taken oath in Parliament to owe allegiance to the Constitution and uphold India’s unity and integrity. “That I reiterate the oath taken while being sworn in as Member of Parliament to preserve and uphold the provisions of the Constitution of India and to protect the territorial integrity of the nation,” the affidavit stated.
Taking objection to Lone’s affidavit, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta while urging the court to make some observations regarding his conduct said, “This is adding insult to injury to the nation. Your lordships may read what is not written.”
The petitioners were represented through a battery of senior advocates Kapil Sibal, Gopal Subramanium, Zaffar Shah, Rajeev Dhavan, Dushyant Dave, Chander Uday Singh, Dinesh Dwivedi, Shekhar Naphade, Nitya Ramakrishnan, Gopal Sankaranarayanan, Menaka Guruswamy, Prashanto Chandra Sen and Sanjay Parikh. They questioned the legislature’s power to recommend abrogation of Article 370 as per the J&K Constitution and argued that the President’s rule could not have been invoked for decimating democracy.
It was also argued that Article 370 had assumed permanence and was no longer a ‘temporary’ provision post the dissolution of the J&K Constituent Assembly in 1957. “Parliament had no power under Article 3 of the Constitution to convert a state into a Union Territory,” it was argued.
Supporting the abrogation, the Centre through Attorney General for India R Venkataramani, Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta, Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj, ASG Vikramjeet Banerjee and Advocate Kanu Agarwal argued that its continued existence could not be seen as a distortion of its original purpose.
