Supreme Court upholds abrogation of Article 370 in J&K
12 Dec 2023
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The Supreme Court has upheld the Indian Union government’s decision to revoke the special status enjoyed by Jammu and Kashmir; it has revoked Article 370, which was promulgated in 1949, after the first war with Pakistan over the control of this territory.
On Monday, 11th December 2023, a 5-judge bench of the Supreme Court unanimously ruled to uphold the Union government’s decision to abrogate Article 370 in the state and revoke the special status enjoyed thus far by Jammu and Kashmir.
“Article 370 was an interim arrangement due to war conditions in the state,” Chief Justice DY Chandrachud said. “Textual reading also indicates that it is a temporary provision.”
The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided to revoke the special status of the state by abrogating the law in 2019.
The state of Jammu and Kashmir doesn’t retain any sovereignty after it accedes to the sovereign state of India, i.e., there cannot be a sovereign state within a sovereign state, the court observed.
Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India, like any other state in the country, and hence cannot deserve to be treated separately, the court said, adding that the promulgation of Article 370 was a temporary measure to address some contingencies, and Parliament has every right to revoke it.
Giving its ruling on Monday, the court also ordered that elections to the state assembly be held by 30 September 2024.
The ruling comes on a batch of 23 petitions filed by various groups and political parties opposed to Parliament’s decision to revoke the special status for J&K and carve out the Union territory of Ladakh.
As of now, both Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir are directly ruled by the centre.
The Kashmir Valley is now a divided region controlled in part by Pakistan, which occupied the areas after 1947 and also led to an influx of people from Pakistan and Afghanistan into the Valley.
Pakistan, in turn, has ceded part of the state along the high-altitude Himalayan region, called Aksai Chin, to China.
Referring to the exodus of Kashmiri pandits from Jammu and Kashmir in the 1990s, the court observed that it was not voluntary and said there should be a separate probe on human rights violations in the state since the 1980s.
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