Supreme Court on Tuesday said the hearing of a batch of pleas challenging the abrogation of Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir will start from August 2. According to the information, a five-judge Constitution bench said the matter will be heard on a day-to-day basis, except on Mondays and Fridays.
Apart from the presiding judge Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai and Surya Kant are the other members of the bench. The court also said the parties can submit their written documents on the matter by July 25.
Shah Faesal, Shehla Rashid to withdraw themselves as petitioners
Senior advocate Raju Ramachandran, who is leading the petitioners challenging the constitutional validity of abrogation of Article 370, said two petitioners -- IAS officer Shah Faesal and Shehla Rashid Shora -- have filed an application for withdrawal of their names from the list of petitioners. The top court has allowed their request to delete their names as petitioners. "The title of the case will be 'In Re: Article 370 of the Constitution'," the Supreme Court said. Earlier, the lead petitioner was Shah Faesal.
Meanwhile, National Conference leader Omar Abdullah spoke to the media on the matter following the court's ruling on Tuesday. "...The hearing on Article 370 is beginning. We hope that the hearing ends soon and Supreme Court's decision comes before us soon," he said.
Abrogation of Article 370
It should be mentioned here that the Centre decided to strip the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir of special status and bifurcate it into two union territories on August 5, 2019.
Several petitions challenging the Centre's decision to abrogate the provisions of Article 370 and the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, which split J-K into two union territories - Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh were referred to a Constitution bench in 2019. By abrogating Article 370, the Central government had revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir.
