The Central government had abrogated Article 370 from the then state of Jammu and Kashmir on August 5 in a shock move.
New Delhi| The Supreme Court today ruled that there is no need to refer the petitions challenging the validity of Article 370 to a larger seven-member bench. A number of pleas were filed in the Supreme Court to challenge the constitutional validity of abrogation of Article 370. The Supreme Court was to decide today whether the matter should be handled by the Five-judge bench or to be handed it over to Seven-judge bench.
The five-judge SC bench headed by Justice NV Ramana, Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, R Subhash Reddy, BR Gavai and Surya Kant, had on January 23 reserved its order on this issue.
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However, the Supreme Court today turned down the request to refer the matter to a larger bench. The Central government had abrogated Article 370 from the then state of Jammu and Kashmir on August 5 in a shock move. It had then bifurcated the state into two Union Territories namely: Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
A Batch of pleas was filed seeking o refer the matter to the larger bench citing a direct conflict between the two previous judgements of the court: Prem Nath Kaul versus Jammu and Kashmir in 1959 and Sampat Prakash versus Jammu and Kashmir in 1970. Both these judgements dealt with Article 370. NGO People’s Union For Civil Liberties, Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar Association and an intervenor had filed these petitions. However, the Supreme Court ruled that the five-judge bench is competent to hear the matter.
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