On Tuesday, the Supreme Court reserved its order on a collection of petitions that question the abrogation of Article 370 and the splitting of the former state of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union territories. After 16 days of hearing arguments, a five-judge Constitutional bench led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, consisting of justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, and Surya Kant, stated that lawyers representing the petitioners or respondents can submit written arguments of two pages or less in the next three days.
The Indian government had revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s special status under Article 370 on August 5, 2019. On Monday, the Supreme Court expressed strong reservations towards the petitioners’ arguments that Article 370 had become unamendable after the dissolution of the J&K Constituent Assembly in 1957, saying, “We cannot carve a position for Article 370 which is higher than the basic structure”.
