Indian Supreme Court forms bench to hear petitions on IIOJK’s special status

• Top court five-member bench will take up the petitions on July 11. 
• Over 20 pleas were filed against scraping IIOJK's special status. 
• Supreme Court Chief Justice DY Chandrachud will head the bench.  

In a major development, the Supreme Court of India on Monday finally constituted a five-member larger bench to hear a clutch of petitions challenging the abrogation of Article 370 of the constitution which grants special status to Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), which was key to its accession to India in 1947.

The SC five-member bench headed by Chief Justice Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud and comprising Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Justice Sanjiv Khanna, Justice BR Gavai and Justice Surya Kant will take up the case on July 11.

The Indian government on August 5, 2019, had rushed through a presidential decree to abolish Article 370 of the Constitution, as tensions mounted in the disputed Himalayan valley with unprecedented numbers of Indian troops deployed in the region.

Then-Indian home minister Amit Shah had introduced a resolution to scrap Article 370 in Rajya Sabha earlier, which revoked the special status granted to occupied Kashmir and made the state a Union Territory with the legislature.

Reacting to New Delhi’s, then-prime minister of Pakistan had termed the move to revoke Article 370 illegal and one which would destroy regional peace and security.

The move allowed people from the rest of the country to have the right to acquire property in the disputed territory and settle there permanently, which was not acceptable to Kashmiris and a clear violation of international laws, UN resolutions and the Indian constitution.

More than 20 petitions were filed questioning the constitutional validity of the Indian government’s August 2019 decision to abrogate Article 370, Indian media reported. The petitions were filed by Shah Faesal and others.

Petitioners claimed that constitutional provisions were violated while making the decision.

“The Article 370 case has been pending in the Supreme Court for over two years. The case had not come up after a five-judge bench refused to refer the petitions to a larger bench in March 2020,” according to the Indian media.

Taking to Twitter, Jammu Kashmir National Conference Vice President Omar Abdullah said, “Finally the bench is constituted. I look forward to the hearings beginning in right earnest now.”

Jammu and Kashmir People's Democratic Party (JKPDP) President Mehbooba Mufti welcomed the SC’s decision and hoped that justice is upheld and delivered to the people in Kashmir.

Taking to her Twitter handle she wrote, “The SC ruling on Article 370 maintained that the provision can be abrogated only on the recommendation of the J&K constituent assembly.”