The Supreme Court said it will hear on a daily basis from August 2 a batch of petitions challenging the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution that granted special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. Chief Justice D.Y. A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chandrachud issued several procedural directions and fixed July 27 as the deadline for filing written arguments and convenience compilation by various parties. Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Justice Sanjiv Khanna, Justice BR Gavai and Justice Surya Kant are also included in the bench.
Hearing on petitions daily except Monday and Friday
The court said that the hearing on the petitions will be held on a daily basis except Monday and Friday. Hearings are held on various matters in the Supreme Court on Mondays and Fridays. On these two days only new petitions are accepted for hearing and regular cases are not heard. The bench has appointed two lawyers, one for the petitioner and the other for the government, to prepare the case brief and file it before July 27 to facilitate the court to arrive at the facts quickly. Also, the bench made it clear that no document will be accepted after July 27.
filed an application to withdraw his name from the list
The bench said that the affidavit filed by the Center regarding the status of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir after the August 5, 2019 notification will have no bearing on the hearing on the constitutional issue by a five-judge constitution bench. Senior advocate Raju Ramachandran, who is leading the petitioners challenging the constitutional validity of the abrogation of Article 370, said that two petitioners, IAS (Indian Administrative Service) officer Shah Faesal and civil rights activist Shehla Rashid Shora, have withdrawn their names from the list of petitioners. An application has been filed to take over.
wants to withdraw the name from the list, no objection
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, said that if any person wants to withdraw his name from the list of petitioners, he has no objection to it. Thereafter, the bench allowed Shah and Shora to withdraw their names from the list of petitioners. At the end of the hearing, senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for one of the petitioners, said that dropping Faesal’s name from the list of petitioners would create a problem as far as the title of the case is concerned, as he is the main petitioner.
The lawyers accepted the suggestions given by the bench
Advocate Manohar Lal Sharma, who filed a petition opposing the abrogation of Article 370, said that his case was the first to come up before the court and notice was issued on it, but his name appeared in the case list among others, including some NGOs. Appearing in the middle of the cases filed by the petitioners. To this, the bench said that it would be appropriate to title the present matter as ‘In Re: Article 370 of the Constitution’ and it would not create any problem in any part of the subject matter. The counsel appearing for various groups accepted the suggestion made by the bench.
