The Supreme Court of India.
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New Delhi: The Supreme Court is set to announce its much-awaited judgment on December 11 regarding pleas challenging the decisions made on August 5-6, 2019, to abrogate Article 370 of the Constitution, which granted special status to the erstwhile border state of Jammu and Kashmir.
A five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and comprising Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna, B R Gavai and Surya Kant, had on September 5, 2023, reserved its judgment on the batch of pleas.
The Constitution bench had heard the arguments in the matter for 16 days.
A battery of senior advocates – Kapil Sibal, Rajeev Dhavan, Gopal Subramanium, Dushyant Dave, Zafar Shah, Gopal Sankaranarayanan – represented the petitioners before the apex court.
The Centre was represented by Attorney General R Venkataramani and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta. Counsel representing several intervenors also submitted their arguments in the matter before the court.
Dhavan, representing Sajjad Lone-led J&K People’s Conference, had contended that India is historically, legally, and constitutionally barred from breaking its promise, which finds concurrent reflections in the constitutions of India and J&K, to give internal sovereignty to J&K after the signing of the Instrument of Accession in 1947. It was argued that, unlike other princely states, J&K did not sign the merger agreement.
On August 2, the apex court began hearing the arguments from the petitioners’ side.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing National Conference MP Mohd Akbar Lone, contended that between the Centre and the state, there was an understanding that the Constituent Assembly would determine the future course of action regarding whether Article 370 should be abrogated or not. He argued that the people of J&K are with India, but there is a special relationship enshrined in Article 370.