The Supreme Court on Tuesday said that it will hear pleas challenging the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution that bestowed special status on the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.
A five-judge Constitution bench of the SC has fixed July 27 as the deadline for filing of documents, written submissions by parties.
The Central government told the SC that post the changes, street violence, which was engineered and orchestrated by terrorists and secessionist networks has now become thing of past.
Since 2019, when Article 370 was abrogated, the entire region has witnessed an “unprecedented era of peace, progress and prosperity,” the Centre said.
After the abrogation of Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir, life has returned to normalcy there after three decades of turmoil, the Centre told the Supreme Court.
Schools, colleges and universities are functioning without any strikes during the last three years, it added.
“The earlier practice of strikes and bandhs is a thing of the past. Participation in sporting activities is phenomenal having reached 60 lakhs in 2022-23. These facts clearly prove the positive impact of the constitutional changes effected in 2019,” Centre said in its affidavit.
The affidavit of the Centre was filed on a batch of petitions challenging the abrogation of Article 370 and bifurcation of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union territories.
The petitions which are pending since 2019 have not been taken up for hearing since March 2020.
Various petitions are pending before the top court challenging the validity of the law scrapping Article 370 of the Constitution and special status to Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcating the state into two Union Territories.
On August 5 2019, the Central government announced its decision to revoke the special status of Jammu and Kashmir granted under Article 370 and split the region into two Union territories.
A five-judge Constitution bench in March 2020 had declined to refer to a larger 7-judge bench a batch of petitions challenging the Constitutional validity of the Centre’s decision to abrogate provisions of Article 370 on August 5, saying there were no reasons to refer the matter to a larger bench.
