TON 31 December 2019: The Supreme Court of India set up a five-judge Constitution bench headed by Justice N V Ramana, comprising of justices S. Kishan Kaul, R. Subhash Reddy, Surya Kant and B. R. Gavai to hear legal challenges to the Centre’s decision to abrogate provisions of Article 370 that gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir. The five-judge bench will examine the constitutional validity of the scrapping of the article’s provisions and the subsequent presidential orders on it.

Several petitions have been filed challenging the Centre’s decision abrogating Article 370 provisions and bifurcating the state into Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh, contesting presidential orders of 5^th August “unconstitutional, void and inoperative”. Interestingly, a separate petition has also been filed by Shah Faesal, former bureaucrat who adopted politics as profession and is underground agent of Indian intelligence agencies to suppress Kashmiris movement for independence of Indian held Jammu and Kashmir State.

The Supreme Court on 12 December, after hearing preliminary submission, highlighted that it may consider the question of referring the issue of challenge to the abrogation of provisions of Article 370, to a larger 7-judge bench. The next date of hearing has been fixed for 21 January 2020.