Three years and eleven months after the union government abrogated the special status of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, the Supreme Court has now listed a batch of petitions challenging the abrogation of Article 370 of the constitution of India.
A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud will take up for hearing on July 11 around 23 pleas challenging the decision. The top court had last heard the matter in March 2020, when it had declined the petitioners’ plea to refer the matter to a larger bench. Since then, the court had said on numerous occasions that it will list the petitions early.
In the year 2022, it was former CJI N V Ramana who agreed to list the matter for early hearing while the matter was also mentioned before CJI Chandrachud in February this year, but the matter could not come up for hearing. While politicians, particularly in Kashmir, seem very excited and have welcomed the current development, the truth remains that a lot has changed in Jammu and Kashmir since August 2019. The schools now function without being forced to shut due to hartal calls by separatist groups, while stone-pelting is a thing of past.
Unprecedented progress is made in terms of developmental projects, while there have been massive changes, positive overall in the governance. In Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha’s own words, providing houses to people in rural areas, developing roads, putting in place primary health facilities and safe drinking water services, creating more avenues for education, employment, and agriculture, attracting private investment and bridging gaps between government delivery mechanisms and people’s expectations were some of the tasks his administration has completed by building trust between the administration and the people. There has been a rise in the tourist footfall, a number of reforms have been taken, and overall, it feels the people of Jammu and Kashmir have moved on from the Article 370.
This sentiment was reflected by IAS officer Shah Faesal, who said the constitutional provision is a thing of the past and there is no going back. Article 370, for many Kashmiris like me, is a thing of the past. Jhelum and Ganga have merged in the great Indian Ocean for good. There is no going back. There is only marching forward, the 2010-batch Indian Administrative Service officer wrote on Twitter.
Interestingly, Faesal was detained for more than a year after the provisions of Article 370 were abrogated and the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir was bifurcated into Union territories in August 2019, when he had filed a petition in the Supreme Court in 2019, challenging the Centre’s decision to scrap Article 370. However, he later filed an application in the court seeking the deletion of his name from the list of seven petitioners who had challenged the scrapping of Article 370. With all this in the background, it will be interesting to note, how the Supreme Court decides on the matter as the hearing commences on July 11.
